ms^i^m^mf^m^.  a..,/;'S;::r-^^.'v^' ; 


The  War  and  Preaching. 

By  John  Kelman,  D.D. 


EX    LIBRIS 

THE    UNIVERSITY 

OF    CALIFORNIA 


1 


FROM  THE  FUND 

ESTABLISHED  AT  YALE 

IN  1927  BY 

WILLIAM  H.  CROCKER 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1882 

SHEFFIELD  SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL 

YALE  UNIVERSITY 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THOUGHTS  ON  THINGS  ETERNAL 

SALTED  WITH  FIRE 

AMONG  FAMOUS  BOOKS 


THE  FORTY-FIFTH  SERIES  OF  THE  LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP 
ON  PREACHING,  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


THE 

WAR  AND  PREACHING 

BY 

JOHN  KELMAN,  D.  D. 

MINISTER  OF  ST.    GEORGE*  S  UNITED  FREE  CHURCH 
EDINBURGH 


H 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

MDCCCCXIX 


/,-M         ,       J 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


t>/  i> 


K^f 


TO 

Dr.  ALEXANDER  WHYTE 

IN  DEEP  REVERENCE  AND 
AFFECTION 


64G559 


CONTENTS 

Lecture  I                                                                    Page 
Introductory — Reality 1 

Lecture  II 

Dogma  and  Experience  23 

Lecture  III 

Then  Came  the  War  45 

Lecture  IV 

The  Soldier's  Creed 70 

Lecture  V 

The  Preacher  as  Expert 98 

Lecture  VI 

The  Preacher  as  Statesman 125 

Lecture  VII 

The  Preacher  as  Priest 154 

Lecture  VIII 

The  Preacher  as  Prophet 184 


o   o 


LECTURE  I../ 

Introductory — Reality 

IT  would  be  impossible  too  strongly  to  express  my 
sense  of  the  honour  which  this  University  has  con- 
ferred upon  me  in  inviting  me  to  deliver  these  lec- 
tures here.  The  lectures  themselves  must  be  my  attempt 
at  acknowledgment,  and  I  am  deeply  conscious  how  in- 
adequately that  attempt  has  been  achieved.  Yet  it  com- 
forts me  to  remember  that  I  shall  not  speak  as  a  stranger 
among  you,  but  as  one  of  yourselves,  and  that  your  judg- 
ment will  be  accordingly  tempered.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  Graduation  Day  of  1917.  I  had  come  to  you  from 
the  front  in  Flanders,  and  from  a  long  tour  of  lecturing 
on  the  subject  of  the  war  in  the  Middle  West  and  in  the 
Southern  States  of  America.  I  had  seen  your  great  na- 
tion passing  through  the  most  critical  and  the  most  fateful 
hour  of  all  its  history.  It  seemed  to  me  that  day,  when 
through  your  graciousness  I  sat  among  you  as  a  graduate 
of  Yale,  that  I  felt  the  mighty  heart-throb  with  which 
America  rose  and  plunged  into  the  most  stupendous  war 
of  history.  And  in  that  hour  I  was  not  only  among  you, 
I  was  one  of  you, — et  ego  in  Arcadia, — and  the  heart- 
throb was  within  my  own  breast  as  it  was  in  yours. 

When  one  remembers  that  more  than  forty  courses  of 
these  lectures  have  already  been  delivered  and  published, 
it  would  seem  that  there  can  be  nothing  left  to  say.  Yet 
I  take  it  that  the  thing  which  you  mainly  desire  is  the 
result  of  the  lecturer's  own  experience,  what  he  personally 
has  found  preaching  to  be.  Each  man  sees  and  faces 
the  world  anew,  and  finds  something  in  it  for  himself. 

1 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

Of  course  he  will  enlarge  that  personal  experience  with 
the  results  of  his  studies  of  men  and  books,  and  of  his 
general  outJool^  and  his  knowledge  of  the  world.  Yet  it 
will  be  mainly  his  own  experience  to  which  he  will-  turn. 
Tliat  r+iu.Ht  be  a  solemn  adventure  for  a  man's  own  soul, 
like  the  advetttUrfe  of  searching  back  through  the  arranged 
and  numbered  sermons  on  his  shelves.  He  will  feel  the 
mystery  of  it  all.  Those  lacunce,  dead  periods  when  his 
preaching  for  a  time  had  lost  its  force ;  those  recoveries,  in 
which  again  it  became  alive  and  struck  home ;  those  and  a 
thousand  thronging  memories  that  gather  round  individ- 
ual sermons,  not  easily  attributable  to  any  causes  which 
he  can  discover,  will  sufficiently  impress  upon  him  the 
conviction  that  a  lifetime  devoted  to  preaching  is  a  very 
grave  and  formidable  enterprise. 

Yet  I  do  not  think  that  a  preacher's  diary  can  be  all  that 
is  expected  in  such  lectures  as  these.  A  mere  record  of 
his  own  experiences,  annotated  with  counsels  as  to  the 
execution  of  sermon-work  and  other  parts  of  the  minis- 
ter's duties,  is  not  enough.  From  the  manifold  detail  of 
past  experience,  certain  leading  principles  ought  to  be 
evolved,  and  these  must  result  in  something  in  the  nature 
of  a  theory  of  preaching,  of  which  the  course  of  lectures 
will  be  the  exposition. 

No  study  could  be  more  interesting,  and  few  perhaps 
more  profitable,  than  an  historical  review  of  the  great 
preachers  of  the  past.^  I  do  not  mean  so  much  an  account 
of  the  peculiar  personal  qualities  of  their  genius,  nor  of 
the  methods  which  they  adopted,  as  of  their  various  mes- 

1  In  his  volume  on  The  Christian  Minister  and  his  Duties,  the 
late  Principal  Oswald  Dykes  of  Cambridge  has  presented  to  the 
modern  reader  the  results  of  his  long  lifetime  of  study  and  ex- 
perience. The  book  is  characterised  on  the  one  hand  by  a  rare 
spiritual  understanding  of  the  devotional  life;  on  the  other  hand 
by  its  constant  sense  of  history,  in  virtue  of  which  every  point 
in  regard  either  to  principle  or  detail  leads  back  to  its  origins 
in  the  past. 

2 


REALITY 

sages  considered  particularly  in  relation  to  the  spirit  and 
the  problems  of  their  times.  Chrysostom,  Savonarola, 
Knox,  Goodwin,  Fenelon — these  and  countless  other  faces 
look  out  upon  us  from  the  august  shadow  of  the  Cloud 
of  Witnesses.  Some  of  them  sent  forth  a  timeless  voice, 
unrelated  to  the  voices  of  their  generation,  aloof  and  ul- 
tramundane. Others  spoke  to  the  spirit  of  their  genera- 
tion, loving  the  human  life  around  them,  and  understand- 
ing well  its  hidden  springs  of  action  and  of  thought.  The 
effect  of  such  a  study  on  the  whole  must  be  a  realisation 
of  the  infinite  variety  of  worthy  and  successful  preaching. 
The  Church  of  the  Firstborn  has  room  within  it  for  all 
the  groups  into  which  His  brethren  have  gathered,  and  its 
preaching  has  an  equal  latitude.  There  will  be,  ift  all  true 
preaching,  a  certain  fixed  and  uncompromising  element, 
but  history  has  conclusively  proved  that  this  is  not 
enough.  It  shows  preaching  to  be  a  plastic  force,  which 
has  always  taken  on  new  character  corresponding  to  the 
changing  events  and  periods  of  time,  and  answering  to 
the  infinite  variety  of  the  phases  of  human  life  and  need. 

To-day,  more  than  in  any  day  in  the  past,  the  promise 
is  being  fulfilled,  "Behold,  I  make  all  things  new.*'  Na- 
tions are  being  born  in  a  day,  and  the  world  reborn.  The 
watchwords  of  Science,  of  Social  Reform,  of  every  de- 
partment of  human  activity  and  interest,  grow  obsolete 
almost  before  they  have  become  familiar.  The  preaching 
that  is  to  be  effective  in  such  an  age  must  be  sensitive  to 
the  metamorphoses  of  the  swiftly-changing  time.  It 
should  not  be  a  cautious  after-statement,  when  safety  has 
been  already  guaranteed.  It  must,  if  it  is  to  be  taken  se- 
riously as  a  living  force,  be  adventurous  and  daring. 

Turning  from  the  great  and  noble  history  of  preaching 
in  the  past  to  the  conditions  of  the  present  day,  one  is 
met  by  the  startling  commonplace  expressed  in  the  phrase, 
"The  failure  of  the  Church."  This  is  one  of  those  un- 
thinking verdicts  which  are  frequently  pronounced  upon 

3 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

great  institutions  by  people  whose  equipment  for  pro- 
nouncing judgment  is  singularly  slender.  You  will  gen- 
erally find  that  the  less  a  critic  knows  about  the  Church, 
the  more  confident  he  is  in  his  assertion  that  she  has  failed. 
It  is  never  wise  to  accept  a  sweeping  condemnation  with- 
out careful  scrutiny.  Such  scrutiny  will,  I  believe,  reveal 
the  fact  that  the  Church  of  to-day  stands  for  very  much 
more  reality  and  value  than  its  enemies  hope  and  its  timid 
friends  fear.  As  a  defence  against  temptation,  a  refuge 
from  sorrow,  a  centre  of  guidance  and  inspiration,  a  fos- 
tering source  of  private  and  public  ideals  which  are  the 
most  potent  of  all  human  forces,  I  do  not  know  a  land  in 
which  the  Church  has  failed.  Certainly  in  very  many 
communities  it  exerts  a  quiet  influence  which  ranks  among 
the  most  powerful  of  the  time.  Working,  as  it  does,  from 
the  individual  out  upon  society,  from  the  few  to  the  many, 
this  influence  remains  for  the  most  part  hidden,  and  may 
be  very  easily  overlooked  and  discounted.  But  it  may  be 
confidently  affirmed  that  the  life  of  a  churchless  land 
would  be  unspeakably  less  secure  against  public  dangers, 
and  poorer  in  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual  ideals,  than 
that  of  a  land  secretly  fortified  and  enriched  by  the  min- 
istrations of  the  Church  in  the  midst  of  it. 

Yet  facts  and  figures  show  but  too  clearly  how  much 
there  is  to  be  said  on  the  side  of  hostile  critics  of  the 
Church.  Investigations  which  have  been  made  in  the 
British  army  show  that  only  some  25  per  cent,  of  our  sol- 
diers were  in  any  living  relation  with  the  Church.  This  is 
a  very  serious  state  of  matters,  and  it  shows  a  condition 
of  society  in  the  strongest  possible  contrast  to  that  of  any 
Christian  country  in  the  seventeenth  or  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Then,  the  Church  spake  with  authority,  and  in  the 
dogmatic  certainty  of  her  preaching  there  was  no  thought 
of  compromise  with  doubt.  Now,  the  spirit  of  man's 
common  thought  has  changed,  and  the  intellect  of  large 
numbers  of  men  is  not  commanded  by  her  reasonings,  nor 

4 


REALITY 

is  their  conscience  convinced  that  her  denunciations  are 
authentic  thunder. 

Yet  it  is  easy  to  exaggerate  the  sinister  meaning  of  the 
fact  that  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  population  does  not 
attend  any  place  of  worship.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  simply 
due  to  the  relaxation  of  a  discipline  which  depended  for 
its  authority  upon  the  temporary  phenomenon  of  secular 
power  in  the  Church.  When  that  disappeared,  every  man 
went  unto  his  own  place.  At  the  period  when  the  Church, 
like  the  godparents  in  the  Baptism  Service,  "called  upon 
them  to  hear  sermons,"  there  must  have  been  multitudes 
of  churchgoing  men  and  women  who  in  their  hearts  were 
non-churchgoing.  The  compulsion  rested  more  or  less 
upon  the  fallacy  that  churchgoing  is  a  virtue  in  its  own 
right,  by  whose  observance  humanity  acquires  merit,  and 
by  whose  neglect  it  incurs  guilt.  It  is  obvious,  however, 
that  there  is  no  such  intrinsic  virtue  in  going  to  church,  or 
guilt  in  staying  away.  The  question  which  must  decide 
the  moral  or  religious  quality  of  the  habit  is.  What  do  peo- 
ple go  to  church  for  ?  If  it  is  only  to  keep  up  an  appear- 
ance of  respectability  or  to  avoid  the  censure  of  ecclesias- 
tics, it  would  be  actually  more  creditable  to  renounce  the 
practice.  If  it  is  to  satisfy  a  real,  as  contrasted  with  a 
merely  formal  and  artificial  need,  then  it  is  a  practice  to 
be  commended  now  as  of  old.  Certainly  the  change  has 
been  a  wholesome  one  to  this  extent,  that  the  desires  and 
inclinations  of  men  have  come  out  into  the  open.  We 
know,  better  than  our  fathers  did,  who  those  are  who  de- 
sire what  the  Church  has  to  offer  them,  and  who  the 
others  are.  That  change  has  at  least  cleared  the  situation 
and  simplified  it. 

Further,  when  we  come  into  intimate  contact  with  the 
non-churchgoing,  we  make  interesting  discoveries.  This 
aspect  of  the  war  should  be  fully  realised.  There,  for 
once,  the  ex-convict  and  the  divinity  student  lived  side  by 
side — an  excellent  thing  for  the  divinity  student.     For 

5 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

once,  at  last,  the  opportunity  came  for  the  Church  to  get 
into  close  contact  and  acquaintance  with  several  millions 
of  young  men  who  were  formerly  quite  outside  her  pale, 
and  to  whom  she  had  no  possibility  of  access.  Home  mis- 
sion work,  at  the  best,  had  only  been  able  to  touch  the 
fringe  of  the  problem.  Then,  in  resting  camps  at  the  base, 
and  in  the  dugouts  and  trenches  of  the  line,  ministers  of 
the  various  churches  were  in  close  and  constant  fellow- 
ship with  the  men.  They  are  unanimous  in  their  re- 
port. Those  who  have  hitherto  drifted  past  the  Church 
are  not  essentially  bad  men.  In  respect  of  all  the  dis- 
tinctively soldierly  virtues — courage,  discipline,  endurance 
— it  would  be  impossible  to  draw  any  clear  line  between 
them  and  the  churchgoing.  In  respect  of  general  charac- 
ter and  quality  of  spirit,  while  the  fortifying  and  inspiring 
influence  of  the  Church  is  more  clearly  perceptible,  it  re- 
mains true  that  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  it  would  be 
impossible  to  conclude  that  the  reason  for  their  aloofness 
from  the  Church  is  to  be  found  in  any  aversion  from 
goodness  or  deliberate  choice  of  evil  ways.  The  simple 
truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  reason  why  these  men  do 
not  go  to  church  is  that  they  are  not  interested  in  the 
things  which  the  Church  provides.  They  are  at  one  with 
the  Church  in  many  of  her  teachings,  but  it  seems  to  them 
that  she  expresses  those  teachings  in  a  different  language 
from  their  own,  different  not  only  in  words  but  in  habits 
of  thought  as  well.  To  them  the  Church  is  a  great  or- 
ganised unreality.  They  neither  desire  it  nor  do  they  hate 
it.  They  simply  leave  it  alone  as  a  thing  entirely  out  of 
their  line. 

In  this  word  reality  we  find  the  root  of  the  matter. 
Take  these  two  curious  instances,  gathered  at  random. 
Alison  the  historian  describes  the  English  clergyman  of 
the  eighteenth  century  as  "sharing  the  hospitality  of  the 
rich  in  his  prosperity,  and  visiting  the  poor  in  his  afflic- 
tion."   The  other  is  from  a  deathbed  scene  told  by  Gait 

6 


REALITY 

in  his  inimitable  way,  in  Annals  of  the  Parish:  "I  wish 
you  would  put  in  a  word  for  me,  Doctor,  for  you  know 
that  in  these  times  it  is  the  duty  of  every  good  subject  to 
die  a  Christian."  The  minister  prays,  in  his  accustomed 
formulae,  using  phrases  about  God's  "chastening  hand, 
which  was  laid  so  heavily  upon  His  aged  servant."  The 
dying  man  interrupts  him :  "None  of  that  stuff.  Doctor ; 
you  know  I  cannot  call  myself  a  Christian." 

These  are  two  heart-searching  quotations  for  ministers, 
all  the  more  so  because  they  are  so  blameless  and  natural, 
and  the  unreality  in  them  is  so  naively  unconscious.  But 
the  second  quotation  is  especially  significant.  It  is  evi- 
dently the  story  of  a  good  and  pious  man,  but  a  man 
whom  conventional  language  has  robbed  of  reality.  It  is 
but  one  of  many  such  types.  Some  men's  preaching, 
evenly  edifying  to  the  mediocrity  of  the  few  who  know 
and  like  the  time-honoured  routine  of  religious  vocab- 
ulary, is  to  all  others  as  meaningless  as  it  is  wearisome. 
Others  have  cultivated  a  habit  of  familiar  speech  in  un- 
familiar regions,  revelling  in  highly  picturesque  descrip- 
tions of  the  heaven  beyond  the  grave,  or  in  exaggerated 
accounts  of  spiritual  experience  on  this  side  of  it.  Others, 
steeped  in  abstract  theological  study,  have  rendered  them- 
selves unable  to  describe  the  most  ordinary  facts  in  any 
but  the  most  extraordinary  language.  Others  restrict 
their  preaching  to  the  expounding  of  some  regulation 
formula  of  which  they  arrogantly  speak  as  "The  Truth." 
Others  seek  out  for  themselves  generalities  to  which  no 
one  will  be  able  to  take  exception,  out  of  cowardly  defer- 
ence to  that  terrifying  bogy,  "the  man  on  the  street."  If 
they  only  knew  it,  the  man  on  the  street  is  uncommonly 
like  other  people,  and  he  neither  understands  such 
colourless  platitudes  nor  does  he  like  them.  Others  are 
the  victims  of  philosophy,  and  cannot  be  induced  to  leave 
its  terminology  behind  them  when  they  enter  the  pulpit.^ 

1  To  young  preachers,  fresh  from  college,  philosophy  is  pecul- 

7 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

However  it  may  have  arisen,  there  can  be  no  question 
as  to  the  fact  that  preaching  has  suffered  to  a  most  lam- 
entable extent  by  the  habitual  assumption  of  a  pulpit 
manner  which  is  felt  by  the  hearers  to  be  unreal.  Against 
this  habit  I  wish  to  enter  my  strong  protest.  The  for- 
mality of  language  and  of  bearing — sometimes  even  of 
voice — which  is  often  assumed  by  the  preacher  under  the 
delusion  that  it  is  the  suitable  and  proper  thing  for  preach- 
ing, is  not  real  dignity  and  it  is  not  impressive  solemnity. 
It  is,  as  Sam  Jones  has  called  it,  simply  "the  starch  of  the 
shroud"  which  enwraps  a  dead  message.  For  this  it  is 
not  necessary  that  the  preacher  should  be  talking  in  the 
language  of  a  past  generation.  That,  indeed,  is  sometimes 
accountable  for  his  ineffectiveness.  Yet  words  which 
were  spoken  to  a  generation  now  long  dead  may  retain 
their  life,  if  they  were  ever  vigorously  alive.  I  remember 
once  making  an  experiment  with  this.  There  is  a  sermon 
on  "God  the  Lord  is  a  sun  and  shield,"  published  half  a 
century  ago  by  a  distinguished  predecessor  of  my  own,  of 
whom  I  had  heard  it  said  that  his  sermons  could  not  be 

iarly  apt  to  be  a  snare.  When  such  preachers  are  themselves 
accredited  students  of  philosophy,  it  is  difficult  for  them  to  realise 
how  far  apart  their  favourite  studies  are  from  the  interest,  or 
even  the  understanding,  of  the  men  and  women  to  whom  they 
preach.  M.  Anatole  France,  who  insists  on  this  point  in  many 
passages,  has  summed  up  the  popular  verdict  in  one  mordant 
sarcasm :  "These  untenable  propositions,  which,  however,  the  phil- 
osophic world  would  easily  accept  provided  they  were  stated  in 
sufficiently  unintelligible  language."  That  is,  indeed,  no  fair 
statement  of  the  case.  Yet  that  is  the  point  of  view  of  many  in- 
telligent people  in  every  congregation.  Even  the  most  erudite  stu- 
dent of  philosophy  has  to  reckon  with  this  fact.  As  to  the  use  of 
philosophical  terms  by  preachers  who  are  not  erudite  philoso- 
phers, that  dishonest  practice  has  added  to  the  distrust  with 
which  ordinary  people  are  apt  to  receive  such  preaching.  If 
Johnson  was  justified  by  certain  pretenders  in  his  famous  dictum 
that  "Patriotism  is  the  last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel,"  certainly  there 
are  not  wanting  instances  to  prove  that  philosophy  may  be  the 
camouflage  of  a  fool. 

8 


REALITY 

preached  and  would  not  be  listened  to  to-day.  Preaching 
from  the  same  text,  I  introduced  a  page  of  his  book,  and 
it  held  the  congregation  listening  intently.  The  real  secret 
lies  in  expressing  oneself  so  that  one's  words  find  an  an- 
swer in  the  spirits  of  the  people.  Those  who  fail  to  arrest 
attention  do  so  because  they  are  out  of  touch  with  facts. 
Bishop  Phillips  Brooks  has  described  them  in  a  memora- 
ble sentence  as  "neither  high  enough  to  hear  the  calling 
of  the  stars,  nor  low  enough  to  hear  the  grumbling  of  the 
earthquake."  In  other  words,  the  preacher  must  be  in 
touch  with  either  the  heights  or  the  depths  of  his  hearers' 
experience,  or  at  least  with  some  phase  of  it  which  they 
recognise. 

This  fundamental  consideration  is  the  keynote  of  the 
present  course  of  lectures.  The  secret  of  reality  in  preach- 
ing is  intelligibility,  and  the  secret  of  intelligibility  is  inter- 
est. "Interest,"  "interesting,"  are  to  be  understood  in  their 
etymological  sense — inter  est — that  which  is  common  to 
speaker  and  hearer,  that  which  they  have  between  them. 
Allow  me  to  insist  upon  this  first  necessity.  It  is  pro- 
claimed in  the  wonderful  story  of  Pentecost,  though  not 
all  readers  of  the  second  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  have  noticed  it  there.  In  that  composite  con- 
gregation there  were  four  main  groups  of  nationalities. 
There  were  those  from  the  far  east,  oriental  mystics  from 
the  lands  of  occult  and  secret  lore;  Greeks,  with  their 
hereditary  philosophic  bent  of  mind ;  Egyptians,  sphinx- 
like, whose  thoughts  dwelt  solemnly  among  the  dead ;  Ro- 
mans, children  of  the  Empire,  whose  imperial  purposes 
and  strivings  were  intensely  alive  and  rudely  practical. 
They  differed  utterly  in  origin  and  in  character.  Their 
differences  were  not  merely  a  matter  of  language,  but 
of  taste,  tradition,  and  habit  of  mind.  Yet  every  man  of 
them  heard  the  apostles  speak  in  his  own  language.  The 
point  of  the  whole  story  is  just  this  intelligibility.  It  is 
not  recorded  as  a  mere  linguistic  phenomenon ;  it  tells  of 

9 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

an  intelligible  gospel  which  appeals  to  men's  varied  ideas 
and  points  of  view,  which  meets  their  vital  needs,  and  has 
practical  results  in  their  conduct  and  character. 

Too  often  spirituality  is  identified  with  sheer  aloofness 
from  the  world  in  which  men  live.  Too  often  the  thought 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  is  associated  with  varieties  of  re- 
ligious experience  which  are  wild,  extravagant,  and  ab- 
normal ;  with  emotional  excitement  rather  than  with  clear 
thinking ;  with  a  feverish  state  in  which  the  spirit  of  man 
lashes  out  like  some  untamed  creature.  Thus  the  popular 
idea  of  the  Spirit  is  of  a  force  essentially  marked  by  un- 
intelligibility.  It  was  this  tendency  which  St.  Paul  had  to 
combat  when  he  advocated  prophecy  that  was  understood, 
against  "tongues"  which  no  man  could  understand;  and 
when  he  insisted  that  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  are  simple 
things  like  love,  joy,  and  peace.  The  prophet  of  still  more 
ancient  days  was  behind  the  great  apostle  here.  When  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him,  it  was  to  proclaim 
beauty  for  ashes  and  the  oil  of  joy  for  mourning — a 
proclamation  surely  which  every  heart  of  man  and  woman 
understands.  Above  all,  Jesus  Christ  Himself  is  behind 
him,  for  it  was  the  Spirit  of  truth  which  He  promised 
to  send  to  men,  the  Spirit  which  was  to  lead  them  into 
truth,  setting  free  on  earth  not  ecstatic  feeling,  but  knowl- 
edge and  insight. 

Here,  then,  in  the  story  of  the  great  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  the  original  and  authentic  note  is  not  that  of  some- 
thing occult  which  everybody  was  amazed  at,  but, of  some- 
thing intelligible  which  everybody  understood.  The  Holy 
Spirit,  as  here  revealed,  is  just  God  making  Himself  in- 
telligible to  men,  God  making  men  understand  Him,  God 
speaking  to  each  man  in  his  own  tongue.  It  is  true  that 
emotion  frequently  accompanies  the  gift  of  the  Spirit, 
sometimes  intense  emotion.  There  is  a  certain  element 
of  wildness  in  all  great  preaching.  But  it  is  possible  to 
talk  passionately  or  vehemently  and  yet  to  talk  sense.  The 

10 


REALITY 

average  man  may  be  carried  away  by  mere  eloquence 
for  a  moment,  but  he  will  ultimately  come  to  distrust 
the  eloquence  of  those  who  do  not  know  what  they  mean, 
and  who  cannot  let  him  know  what  they  are  talking  about. 

All  this  comes  back  in  the  end  to  the  supreme  demand 
for  reality  in  preaching.  It  is  demanded  of  us  above  all 
else  that  we  be  real  men  dealing  in  a  real  way  with  real 
things.  The  world  has  been  content  with  conventionality, 
but  it  is  so  no  longer.  It  is  swiftly  coming  to  be  ready 
at  last  to  face  actual  facts  instead  of  living  by  accepted 
theories.  All  the  professional  conventions,  veils  that  have 
long  hidden  reality  from  men,  are  being  torn  down  to-day. 
The  days  of  precedent,  prejudice,  routine,  and  formal  or- 
thodoxy are  over.  Men  are  willing  to  take  religion  se- 
riously for  the  amount  of  sheer  reality  that  is  in  it,  and 
not  for  more.  In  so  far  as  our  language,  or  our  manner, 
or  our  subjects,  have  been  professional  or  artificial,  we 
must  change  them  and  be  natural.  Nay  more,  some  of 
what  we  have  taken  for  settled  truth,  arranged  and  clas- 
sified and  systematised,  may  turn  out  upon  severe  and  can- 
did examination  to  be  mere  imagination,  corresponding  to 
no  existing  set  of  realities  which  we  can  actually  know. 
This  also  must  be  surrendered,  and  exchanged  for  a  mes- 
sage with  some  blood  in  it,  recognisable  as  a  thing  hu- 
manly true. 

The  chief  cause  of  unreality  along  the  whole  line  of 
human  interests  or  activities  lies  in  one  cardinal  mistake. 
It  is  not  conceivable  that  any  man  should  deliberately 
say  to  himself,  Go  to,  let  me  be  unreal,  any  more  than  that 
he  should  say.  Go  to,  I  shall  be  a  hypocrite.  Hypocrisy 
and  unreality  are  subtler  in  their  origins  than  that.  In  al- 
most every  instance  they  may  be  traced  simply  to  the 
confusion  of  means  with  ends,  of  machinery  with  the 
thing  which  it  was  invented  to  produce.  In  his  very  re- 
markable book.  Culture  and  Anarchy,  Matthew  Arnold 
has  enlarged  upon  this  theme  with  great  fertility  of  illus- 

11 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING. 

tration  and  literary  power.  He  has  charged  the  British 
people  with  living  for  such  things  as  money,  freedom,  and 
the  disestablishment  of  the  Church;  and  he  has  pointed 
out  that  however  admirable  these  things  may  be,  or  may 
be  held  to  be,  yet  the  true  ends  of  life  lie  beyond  them, 
and  their  value  is  wholly  measured  by  the  degree  in  which 
they  forward  these  ends.  Sweetness  and  light  are  the  ul- 
timate ends  of  the  human  spirit,  and  wealth  and  freedom 
have  no  value  whatever  except  in  so  far  as  they  bring 
us  nearer  to  these  ends.  In  using  the  disestablishment 
controversy  as  a  further  illustration  of  a  means  that  may 
easily  be  mistaken  for  an  ultimate  end,  he  has  pointed  out 
the  wider  danger  which  besets  the  Church  in  all  ages.  In 
one  form  or  other  it  is  the  danger  of  ecclesiasticism,  in 
which  men  are  apt  to  adopt  for  the  end  of  their  endeav- 
ours the  mere  running  of  the  Church  machine,  whether 
in  the  congregation  or  in  the  larger  courts  of  the  denomi- 
nation. In  that  special  department  of  church  work  with 
which  we  are  at  present  concerned,  viz.  preaching,  the 
same  danger  threatens,  and  it  is  our  greatest  danger. 
Where  preachers  fail,  it  is  usually  due  neither  to  lack 
of  ability,  nor  of  education,  nor  of  genuine  desire  and 
purpose  to  succeed.  It  is  due  to  some  error  or  con- 
fusion as  to  the  end  and  object  of  their  preaching.  For 
preaching  can  never  be  an  end  in  itself.  He  who  aims 
simply  at  preaching  well,  without  considering  the  further 
object  which  his  preaching  is  to  secure,  is  a  priori  doomed 
to  failure.  His  concern  is  with  the  machine;  but  the 
raison  d'etre  of  the  machine  is  not  its  own  running,  but 
the  thing  it  is  manufacturing. 

What  then  is  the  object  of  preaching?  What  is  the 
product  which  the  pulpit  is  designed  and  intended  to  pro- 
duce? There  are  many  different  kinds  of  oratory,  and 
the  function  of  each  is  defined  and  limited  by  its  own 
special  conditions.  The  parliamentary  orator  is  not  by 
any  means  necessarily  a  great  orator  in  the  wider  sense. 

12 


REALITY 

He  has  to  study  on  the  one  hand  the  effect  which  his 
words  will  have  upon  the  vote  at  the  end  of  the  debate, 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  education  of  his  constituents 
or  of  his  party  in  political  principles.  The  oratory  of  the 
bar  has  a  narrower  and  more  immediate  object.  "A  good 
speech  is  a  good  thing,"  said  Daniel  O'Connell,  "but  the 
verdict  is  the  thing."  Many  a  brilliant  oration  has  been  a 
parhamentary  failure,  and  many  a  case  has  been  lost  by  a 
far  profounder  pleading  than  that  which  was  required  to 
win  it.  As  in  Parliament  and  in  the  Law  Courts,  so  in 
the  pulpit,  the  first  condition  of  success  is  to  see  clearly 
and  keep  steadily  in  view  the  thing  the  speaker  wants  to 
do. 

In  the  main,  the  objects  of  preaching  are  three.  They 
may  be  roughly  stated  as  Testimony,  Education,  and 
Appeal. 

By  testimony  1  do  not  mean  the  popular  and  personal 
act,  in  which  it  is  understood  as  the  preacher's  confession 
of  his  own  religious  experience.  Dr.  Dykes,  who  always 
writes  from  the  standpoint  of  the  churchman,  defines  the 
art  of  preaching  as  "that  continuous  and  public  testimony 
which  the  Church  is  always  giving,  through  discourses  by 
her  official  members,  to  her  own  living  faith  in  Christ, 
as  rooted  in  and  sustained  by  the  Word  of  God."^  The 
definition  is  a  weighty  one,  but  it  may  be  misleading. 
Each  individual  church  has  an  historical  testimony  upon 
which  it  rose.  In  protest  against  what  its  founders  took 
to  be  false  doctrine,  or  in  the  desire  to  emphasise  doctrine 
which  they  felt  to  be  neglected  or  ignored  by  the  already 
existing  churches  of  their  time,  they  founded  their  new 
church  upon  a  certain  clearly  defined  doctrinal  basis,  of 
which  they  thus  constituted  themselves  the  champions. 
Naturally  at  first,  and  often  throughout  the  whole  course 
of  their  existence,  these  churches  feel  it  incumbent  on 
them  to  testify  to  their  peculiar  tenets.    Such  testimony 

1  The  Christian  Minister  and  his  Duties,  p.  180. 

13 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

may  be  invaluable  for  a  time,  but  not  infrequently  it  out- 
lives its  time;  and  the  church,  out  of  a  mistaken  loyalty, 
goes  on  testifying  to  a  generation  which  is  perplexed  by 
new  questions  and  has  lost  interest  in,  and  need  for,  the 
testimony  which  once  was  a  vital  force.  A  church  may 
in  this  way  become  a  futile  and  pathetic  voice  crying  in 
the  wilderness.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  being  faithful 
unto  death  in  a  disastrous  sense,  and  certainly  the  ideal 
of  testifying  may  become  a  snare  to  earnest  men. 

Apart  from  such  special  testimonies,  with  their  tend- 
ency to  grow  obsolete  and  ineffective,  there  is  a  danger 
in  accepting  testimony  as  the  chief  end  of  preaching. 
Even  when  it  is  understood  in  a  far  broader  sense  than 
the  denominational,  when  it  bears  witness  to  the  funda- 
mental truths  and  great  doctrines  of  the  faith,  testimony 
is  apt  to  be  an  abstract  thing.  When  it  is  accepted  as  the 
main  object  of  preaching,  it  cannot  fail  to  be  in  danger  of 
becoming  theoretical  and  arid.  The  proper  object  of 
preaching  must  be  its  effect  upon  living  men,  and  not  the 
proclamation  of  statements  however  venerable  or  however 
weighty.  The  force  of  this  is  perceived  when  we  recollect 
the  constant  movement  of  thought  and  the  living  develop- 
ment of  truth,  which  compel  us  to  regard  all  creeds,  not 
as  final  goals  at  the  end  of  the  path  to  truth,  but  as  mile- 
stones which  mark  the  progress  of  the  generations 
towards  a  goal  still  far  ahead. 

The  testimony  which  Dr.  Dykes  intends  is  not,  how- 
ever, in  any  sense  abstract.  It  is  "to  her  own  living  faith 
in  Christ"  that  the  Church  testifies.  This  is  obviously  a 
matter  of  experience,  but  not  the  restricted  experience 
of  any  individual  or  group.  Behind  the  experience  of  any 
given  preacher  and  congregation,  there  stand  the  great 
facts  of  the  Christian  revelation — the  facts  of  the  Living 
God,  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  borne  witness  to  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Church  throughout  the  ages.  Our 
individual  experience  can  appropriate  but  a  very  little  part 

14 


REALITY 

of  all  that  boundless  wealth  of  divine  reality.  St.  Paul's 
and  the  apostles'  experience  lies  behind  us,  dwarfing  all 
that  we  can  ever  hope  to  attain.  Behind  all  is  the  expe- 
rience of  Jesus  Christ  Himself — the  perfect  and  final 
revelation  of  the  divine  life  to  men.  We  preach  Christ 
in  all  His  fullness — ^an  infinitely  greater  message  than 
merely  our  own  detailed  experience  of  Christ.  In  Him 
we  are  literally  made  partakers  of  the  divine  life,  and 
attain  to  the  new  experience  of  oneness  with  the  boundless 
life  of  God.  Testimony,  in  this  great  sense,  may  well  be 
accepted  as  the  comprehensive  and  proper  object  of  all 
Christian  preaching.  But  then  such  testimony  is  not  ab- 
stract, but  in  the  strictest  sense  experiential.  Testimony 
in  the  lesser  senses  which  we  have  indicated  is  a  real  and 
legitimate  object  of  preaching ;  but  it  is  only  one  of  several 
such  objects,  and  its  importance  and  its  claim  are  confined 
within  narrow  limits. 

For  education  as  the  object  of  preaching,  much  may  be 
said.  No  one  will  deny  the  value  or  the  necessity  of  it, 
for  the  ignorance  of  the  average  hearer  concerning  re- 
ligious truth  is  beyond  all  belief.  It  is  this  colossal  ig- 
norance, even  in  otherwise  well-educated  people,  which 
constitutes  the  chief  difficulty  of  the  modern  pulpit.  As 
an  aim  for  the  preacher,  education  has  high  sanctions. 
When  Christ  promised  that  His  Spirit  would  lead  men 
into  all  truth.  He  surely  included  this  among  the  many 
other  agencies  through  which  that  Spirit  would  work,  con- 
tinuing and  interpreting  the  revelation  of  the  Bible  in  the 
preaching  of  the  Word  throughout  the  centuries.  Nor 
can  it  be  questioned  that  the  Church  is  responsible  for  the 
systematic  teaching  of  the  Bible  and  of  religious  truth. 
Every  possible  provision  should  be  made  for  this  in  every 
congregation.  Prayer-meetings,  Bible  classes,  courses  of 
lectures,  studies  of  books  should  be  included  in  every 
year's  programme  of  church  work ;  and  the  endeavour  of 
every  faithful  minister  must  be  to  make  these  studies  so 

15 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

interesting  as  to  tempt  the  people  to  pursue  them  further 
for  themselves.  Yet  it  must  be  confessed  that  so  far  as 
the  actual  preaching  is  concerned,  the  pulpit  is  an  ex- 
tremely poor  instrument  of  education.  The  subject  is  the 
widest  in  the  world,  embracing  the  bearing  of  religion 
upon  every  existing  experience  of  human  life,  every  fact 
that  has  ever  happened,  every  thought  which  has  ever  been 
recorded.  The  opportunity  for  imparting  this  world-wide 
education  is  one  half-hour,  or  at  most  two  half-hours,  per 
week.  Even  if  the  pulpit  had  no  other  function  to  per- 
form than  education — and  it  has  many  others — the 
preacher's  opportunity  is  miserably  inadequate.  Let  him 
do  what  he  can,  by  courses  of  lectures,  expositions,  and 
all  other  means  at  his  command,  the  education  he  can  hope 
to  impart  will  be  at  best  but  the  merest  smattering  of 
knowledge,  ridiculously  out  of  comparison  with  the  edu- 
cation given  in  any  University  class  or  technical  school. 

Even,  however,  if  education  were  far  more  fully 
within  the  power  of  the  pulpit  than  it  is,  it  would  still  be 
impossible  to  regard  it  as  the  chief  object  of  preaching. 
Just  as  in  the  case  of  testimony,  education  is  not  human 
enough,  not  intimately  personal  enough,  for  that.  The 
peculiarity  and  distinction  of  the  preacher's  office,  as  con- 
trasted with  all  other  callings,  is  the  close  relation  between 
preacher  and  hearer.  "No  man,"  says  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  "is  to  preach  for  the  sake  of  the  sermon,  nor  for 
the  sake  of  'the  truth,'  nor  for  the  sake  of  any  'system 
of  truth' ;  but  for  the  sake  of  the  hearts  and  lives  of  the 
men  that  listen  to  his  words.  How  aimlessly  does  he 
preach  who  has  no  thought  of  men,  but  who  sympathises 
only  with  his  own  cogitations."^  This  indicates  some- 
thing more  human  than  testimony,  more  intimate  than 
education.  It  has  been  called  "inspirational"  but  the  word 
in  its  common  usage  is  too  narrow.  Appeal  is  perhaps 
the  most  appropriate  term.    As  we  have  already  seen,  the 

1  Lectures  on  Preaching,  1.  i. 

16 


REALITY 

lack  of  interest  is  the  worst  fault  of  preaching,  and  the 
gaining  or  forcing  of  interest  is  its  initial  triumph.  But 
this  ideal  is  only  to  be  reached  by  putting  oneself  in  the 
place  of  others,  by  expressing  their  own  life,  with  its 
needs  and  aspirations,  its  failures  and  its  successes.  Dr. 
Whyte,  commenting  on  the  curious  and  intimate  detail 
with  which  the  writer  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs  discusses 
the  life  of  the  virtuous  woman  in  her  home,  says,  "The 
man  must  have  been  a  sort  of  city  missionary,  to  be  able 
to  hold  up  the  looking-glass  in  that  fashion  to  the  women 
of  his  day."  This  office  of  appeal  has  many  different 
functions.  Comfort  for  the  distressed,  enlightenment  for 
the  ignorant,  rebuke  and  stern  denunciation  for  the 
wicked — these  and  countless  other  lines  of  operation  are 
within  its  scope.  The  preacher  has  to  know  the  already 
existing  content  of  the  people's  mind  and  thought,  and  to 
attach  new  intellectual,  emotional,  and  moral  values  to  it. 
From  his  wider  consciousness  of  life  as  a  whole,  he  has 
to  arrange  its  diverse  interests  in  juster  proportion,  and  to 
insist  upon  securing  for  eternal  things  their  proper  domi- 
nation over  the  passing  shows  of  time.  Wesley  tells  us 
in  his  Journal  how  on  one  occasion  he  found  himself  con- 
fronted with  a  roomful  of  people  daubed  with  gold  and 
silver,  and  adds  significantly,  ''That  I  might  not  get  out 
of  their  depth,  I  began  expounding  the  parable  of  Dives 
and  Lazarus."  On  the  other  hand,  in  Isaiah  Ixi.  1-3,  that 
perfect  vade-mecum  for  preachers  which  we  have  already 
quoted,  ''to  preach  good  tidings  unto  the  meek,  to  bind  up 
the  broken-hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives," 
one  feels  in  every  sentence  a  great  sympathy  and  under- 
standing vibrating  to  a  new  human  need.  It  involves,  as 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  epitomises  it,  as  the  two  main  quali- 
fications of  the  preacher,  that  he  shall  have  fruitfulness 
in  moral  ideals  and  the  power  of  winning  men.^  For,  in 
the  great  words  of  the  same  author,  the  ultimate  aim  of 
'^Lectures  on  Preaching,  1.  i. 

17 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

preaching  is  no  less  than  "reconstructed  manhood."^  His 
work  is  to  build  men  up  in  truth,  righteousness,  and  love, 
by  bringing  them  to  Christ. 

Thus  the  objects  of  preaching  are  in  the  main  threefold. 
Testimony  is  a  necessary  and  a  permanent  part  of  its 
agency,  but  it  must  always  be  kept  subordinate,  and  con- 
fined within  narrow  limits.  Education  is  necessary,  but 
the  conditions  are  such  that  complete  education  is  im- 
possible, and  the  effort  directed  upon  this  end  must  also 
be  subordinate  and  limited.  The  supreme  object  of 
preaching  is  appeal,  in  the  whole  width  of  the  meaning 
of  that  word.  This  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  ensure  that 
preaching  must  ever  be  trying  work  for  the  preacher.  In 
respect  of  his  audience  this  will  be  so,  for  it  will  bring 
him  in  contact  with  all  the  morbid  side  of  human  expe- 
rience. In  respect  of  his  own  soul  it  will  be  no  less  trying. 
What  manner  of  man  must  he  be  who  deliberately  adopts 
an  office  whose  demands  are  so  exacting,  not  only  upon 
his  imaginative  sympathy,  but  upon  the  freshness,  sen- 
sitiveness and  intensity  of  his  feeling  for  men?  Above 
all,  his  office  will  try  him  in  respect  of  God  and  his  rela- 
tion to  God ;  for  his  appeal  is  not  merely  the  voice  of 
a  friendly  mortal,  calling  to  his  brother  men.  Through 
him  the  heart  of  the  Eternal  God  is  for  ever  crying  the 
cry  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  through  pain  and  death  He  sought 
and  found  His  own. 

There  are  several  false  trails  upon  which  a  preacher 
may  lose  his  way  so  that  he  never  arrives  at  the  true  ob- 
ject of  his  preaching.  Some  of  these  we  shall  be  called 
upon  to  consider  later  on.  But  meanwhile  I  wish  to  point 
out,  with  all  the  emphasis  I  can,  that  one  which  seems  to 
me  the  commonest  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  danger- 
ous. Perhaps  you  may  have  noted  that  memorable  sen- 
tence which  was  quoted  a  few  minutes  ago,  ''How  aim- 
lessly does  he  preach  who  has  no  thought  of  men,  but 

1  Lectures  on  Preaching,  1.  i. 

18 


REALITY 

who  sympathises  only  with  his  own  cogitations."  The 
danger  to  which  I  am  referring  is  that  of  selecting  either 
style  or  matter  which  are  interesting  to  oneself,  without 
sufficiently  or  at  all  considering  whether  they  are  interest- 
ing to  the  people  one  is  addressing.  Our  habits  as  stu- 
dents of  theology  have  taken  us,  or  are  supposed  to  have 
taken  us,  into  a  region  of  thought  and  a  vocabulary  of 
language  which  are  neither  natural  nor  familiar  to  any 
but  the  merest  fraction  of  those  who  hear  us  preach. 
Nothing  is  more  natural  than  for  a  man  who  has  been 
accustomed  for  years  to  train  his  mind  along  certain  lines 
of  reading  and  thinking,  to  pursue  these  lines  in  his 
choice  of  text  and  subject,  and  in  the  construction 
of  his  discourse,  utterly  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  he  is 
practically  alone  in  his  interest  in  these  things.  It  is  be- 
cause of  this  fatal  severance  of  interests  that  in  some 
churches  the  hearers  find  the  sermons  so  deadly  dull  that 
they  are  actually  reduced  to  reading  their  Bibles  during 
the  sermon.  George  Herbert,  counselling  those  who  are 
thus  afflicted,  assures  them  that  at  the  worst  God  may 
take  up  the  text  and  preach  patience.  That  is  no  doubt 
a  consoling  reflection,  but  the  preaching  of  patience  from 
all  sorts  of  different  texts  is  bad  exegesis.  The  text, 
whatever  it  be,  has  a  meaning  of  its  own,  and  God  has 
given  His  preachers  the  responsibility  of  making  that 
meaning  interesting  to  their  flocks. 

Preachers  are  often  but  poor  judges  of  their  own 
preaching.  You  remember  that  passage  in  Annals  of  the 
Parish  where  Mr.  Balquidder's  congregation  is  anxious 
to  provide  him  with  a  helper.  He,  however,  declares  that 
"I  felt  no  falling-off  in  my  powers  of  preaching:  on  the 
contrary,  I  found  myself  growing  better  at  it,  as  I  was 
enabled  to  hold  forth  in  an  easy  manner  for  a  whole 
half-hour  longer  than  I  could  do  a  dozen  years  before." 
This  reminds  one  of  the  time  of  James  II.,  when  it  is  said 
that  one  incumbent  informed  the  people  that,  though  he 

19 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

was  enjoined  to  read  the  second  Declaration  of  Indul- 
gence, they  were  not  compelled  to  listen.^ 

Sometimes  this  lamentable  state  of  affairs  is  due  to 
sheer  egotism  in  the  preacher.  The  pulpit  isolates  a  man, 
and  puts  him  physically  on  a  higher  platform  than  his 
fellow-worshippers.  To  a  man  with  any  taint  of  vanity 
in  him  such  exalted  isolation  is  absolute  poison.  It  gives 
him  ''the  air  of  being  his  own  statue  erected  by  national 
subscription."  It  is  but  natural  that  in  such  a  case  the 
preacher  should  accept  his  own  individual  interests  as 
necessarily  interesting  to  everybody  else.  But  even  men 
of  exemplary  humility  may  have  theories  or  subjects 
which  have  awakened  their  interest  and  become  their  spe- 
cial studies.  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  bore  who  in 
private  life  victimises  his  friends  with  perpetual  discourse 
upon  his  pet  hobby.  Alas,  the  pulpit  also  has  its  bores, 
who  victimise  their  congregations  in  similar  fashion.  For 
many  preachers,  among  whom  may  be  found  some  of  the 
ablest  students  from  the  seminaries,  theology  itself  has  a 
strong  fascination.  These  were  in  former  times  the  most 
acceptable  and  popular  preachers.  In  those  times,  at 
least  in  such  communities  as  the  Scotland  of  the  Covenant- 
ing days  or  the  New  England  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
practically  every  member  of  the  congregation  was  a  the- 
ologian. I  bought,  for  a  few  pence,  an  old  copy  of 
Luther's  Commentary  on  the  Galatians.  It  would  be  safe 
to  say  that  not  one  in  ten  thousand  of  the  people  to  whom 
any  of  us  preaches  has  read  that  great  classic.  Yet  ap- 
pended at  the  end  of  my  copy  there  are  fourteen  pages 
of  names.  The  list  comprises  weavers,  inn-keepers,  tai- 
lors, carpenters,  labourers,  and  a  poet,  dwelling  in  towns 
and  villages  in  the  West  of  Scotland.  They  are  the  names 
of  those  who  subscribed  the  money  for  the  translating 
and  publishing  of  the  commentary.  Anyone  can  see  the 
difference  between  the  lot  of  the  minister  who  preached 
1  Brown,  Life  of  John  Bunyan,  ch.  xvi. 

20 


REALITY 

to  those  men  and  his  who  preaches  to  their  descendants. 
It  is  even  true  that  a  highly  spiritual  man,  whose  interest 
is  absorbed  in  the  mysteries  of  religious  devotion,  dare  not 
speak  to  his  congregation  as  if  they  were  equally  deep  in 
the  arcana  of  religion.  Such  men  are  apt  to  claim  God 
as  one  whose  interests  are  confined  to  the  same  mystic 
region  as  their  own,  and  to  preach  far  above  the  actual 
interest  of  ordinary  people.  The  hearers  are  interested  in 
their  particular  arts  and  professions  and  trades,  in  science 
and  politics,  in  commerce  and  engineering.  ^  But  God  is 
not  the  head  of  the  clerical  profession;  He  does  not 
breathe  merely  the  rarefied  atmosphere  of  spiritual  things. 
He  is  equally  at  home  among  the  hewers  of  wood  and 
smiters  of  iron ;  He  made  the  earth  and  all  that  is  upon  it, 
the  heavens  with  all  their  suns  and  stars.  And  those  who 
have  their  interests  in  these  things  are  not  without  their 
portion  in  the  Maker.  The  preacher  who  ignores  this 
obvious  fact,  and  confines  his  preaching  to  a  region  which 
is  outwith  the  daily  familiarities  of  men,  need  not  wonder 
if  his  message  fails  to  convey  the  impression  of  reality  to 
those  who  hear. 

In  a  word,  the  preacher  is  a  professional  student  of 
theology,  a  professional  sermon-maker,  and  those  to 
whom  he  preaches  are  neither.  It  is  not  enough  that  he 
himself  should  be  interested  in  what  he  says :  those  who 
hear  must  also  be  interested.  On  the  one  hand,  therefore, 
he  must  study  to  so  express  his  theological  convictions 
and  his  spiritual  experience  as  to  draw  forth  their  in- 
terest, at  least  in  the  form  of  curiosity  and  desire ;  on  the 
other  hand,  he  must  educate  his  own  interest,  and  in 
thought  and  feeling  train  himself  to  go  where  his  people 
live. 

Considering  the  number  of  long  and  elaborate  text- 
books which  have  been  written  upon  Homiletics,  especially 
the  German  and  the  French  treatises,  it  becomes  evident 

21 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

that  for  a  course  so  short  as  the  Lyman  Beecher  Lectures, 
one  aspect  alone,  or  at  most  a  very  few  aspects,  must  be 
selected,  and  the  vastly  greater  part  of  the  subject  left 
out.  I  have  selected  the  subject  of  Reality  in  Preaching. 
In  the  next  lecture  I  shall  go  on  to  study  it  in  its  bearings 
upon  the  relations  of  experience  and  dogma,  and  to  lay 
the  stress  for  preaching  on  the  former  rather  than  the 
latter.  We  shall  observe  that  the  transition  from  dogma 
to  experience  is  one  of  those  constant  processes  in  the 
history  of  man's  intellectual  and  religious  life  which  now 
and  then,  in  the  stress  of  tragic  upheavals,  become  sud- 
denly manifest  and  hasten  to  effect  their  completion. 
Such  an  upheaval  has  been  the  Great  War,  and  the  third 
and  fourth  lectures  will  be  devoted  to  a  study  of  the  war's 
actual  religious  effect  upon  the  men  who  have  fought  it. 
In  the  concluding  four  lectures  I  shall  speak  of  the 
preacher  as  expert,  as  statesman,  as  priest,  and  as  prophet, 
each  of  these  studies  being  an  attempt  to  record  one  as- 
pect of  the  return  to  reality  in  preaching  for  which  the 
war  has  so  peremptorily  made  its  demand. 


22 


LECTURE  II 

Dogma  and  Experience 

THE  contention  of  the  first  lecture  was  for  reality 
in  preaching  as  the  remedy  for  the  widespread 
falling-off  of  popular  interest  in  it  of  recent 
years.  We  pass  on  now  to  the  further  consideration  that 
in  dealing  with  men  the  test  of  reality,  and  so  the  secret 
of  interest,  is  experience.  It  is  along  the  lines  of  common 
human  experience,  and  along  these  alone,  that  a  preacher 
can  hope  to  be  intelligible  to  his  hearers.  The  only  thing 
a  man  knows  at  first  hand,  and  therefore  the  only  thing 
he  can  be  said  in  any  considerable  measure  to  understand, 
is  the  thing  that  he  hihiself  has  been  through.^  There 
is  no  greater  danger  to  the  human  spirit  than  that  of 
habitually  living,  thinking,  and  talking  outside  the  range 
of  one's  own  experience.  This  habit  furnishes  us  with 
many  of  the  most  pitiable  spectacles  of  modern  life.  The 
Philistine  who  occupies  himself  with  art,  who  discusses 
pictures  which  he  does  not  comprehend,  or  music  which, 
if  the  truth  were  told,  is  a  meaningless  blank  to  him,  is 
sufficiently  familiar.  In  a  recent  novel  the  danger  of  the 
same  habit  was  exposed  in  domestic  life,  where  a  house- 
hold is  well-nigh  ruined  in  happiness  and  peace  by  its  mis- 
taken loyalty  to  the  ideas  of  a  dead  benefactor.  They 
were  "living  and  occupying  themselves  with  ideas  outside 
the  range  of  their  actual,  vital  experience — talking  about 

1  It  is  perhaps  superfluous  to  explain  that  this  in  no  way  asserts 
the  restriction  of  actual  knowledge  to  the  phenomena  of  sense 
experience,  as  is  done  by  certain  schools  of  philosophy.  There 
is  much  spiritual  knowledge  which  is  not  communicated  through 
the  senses,  and  which  is  nevertheless  true  experience. 

23 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

what  they  didn't  understand."  When  religion  becomes  a 
pose  of  this  sort,  the  tragedy  is  deep  indeed.  Fortunately 
there  is  a  growing  tendency  on  the  part  of  self-respecting 
laymen  to  reject  this  and  all  other  poses,  in  favour  of 
downright  simplicity  and  frankness  both  in  their  accept- 
ances and  rejections. 

A  famous  French  writer  has  said  that  "Whatsoever 
lives,  be  it  but  a  little  dog,  is  at  the  centre  of  things." 
That  saying  is  essentially  true  of  each  individual  human 
being.  He  who  speaks  aside  from  the  experience  of  his 
hearer  is,  for  that  hearer  eccentric.  All  writers  on  the 
communication  of  religious  truth  are  agreed  upon  this 
point.  "The  truth  must  be  personal — a  living  experience, 
a  glowing  enthusiasm,  an  intense  reality."^  "All  sound 
and  legitimate  doctrinal  construction  must  be  based  on 
experience."^  I  fear  all  this  must  be  so  familiar  to  you 
as  to  seem  to  be  little  better  than  platitude — indeed  I  hope 
that  this  is  so.  Yet  much  that  is  unfamiliar  and  of  high 
importance  may  be  involved  in  matters  of  common  knowl- 
edge such  as  this. 

The  general  subject  of  these  lectures  is  "The  War  and 
Preaching,"  and  their  leading  thesis  may  be  summed  up 
in  the  statement  that  the  war  has  recalled  preaching,  as  it 
has  recalled  religion  also,  from  dogma  back  to  experience. 
That,  however,  is  by  no  means  a  phenomenon  peculiar  to 
the  war.  It  is  the  latest  climax  of  a  long  and  continuous 
process  in  the  history  of  human  knowledge  and  belief. 
This  fact  creates  a  new  sense  of  the  serious  importance 
of  the  religious  aspects  of  the  war,  as  factors  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  Christian  faith.  I  have  accordingly  ventured  to 
devote  the  present  lecture  to  a  short  historical  study  which 
will  render  it  more  abstract  than  the  other  lectures,  but, 
I  trust,  not  without  an  interest  of  its  own. 

The  general  process  may  be  summed  up  in  these  two 

1  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Lectures  on  Preaching,  i.  16. 

2  Denney,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Reconciliation,  ii. 

24 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

phases :  ( 1 )  From  experience  to  dogma ;  ( 2 )  Back  from 
dogma  to  experience.  The  first  process,  both  individual 
and  in  general  history,  is  from  experience  to  dogma. 
Neither  the  race  nor  the  individual  is  born  with  any 
ready-made  system  of  beliefs,  any  supply  of  intuitions 
or  of  known  facts  stored  in  his  brain  "like  so  many  peas 
in  a  box."  We  are  born  with  capacities  for  acquiring 
beliefs,  and  with  nothing  more.  As  experience  begins 
and  increases,  we  gather  one  by  one  our  store  of  facts, 
and  form  one  by  one  our  judgments  and  opinions.  In  his 
Authoritative  Basis  of  Faith,  Dr.  Martine^u  has  once  for 
all  disposed  of  all  hope  of  finding  an  external  authority 
which  shall  be  the  source  of  our  beliefs,  and  has  proved 
beyond  dispute  that  all  our  real  knowledge  must  begin 
within  the  soul  in  experience.  Gradually,  as  the  acquisi- 
tive process  goes  on,  the  isolated  experiences  group  them- 
selves into  sets  of  opinions  which  may  be  expressed  as 
dogmatic  beliefs  regarding  life.  These,  at  first  the  cumu- 
lative product  of  experience,  become  detached  from  the 
memory  of  the  experiences  which  first  gave  rise  to  them, 
atid  remain  as  independent  convictions.  This  is  true  of 
the  individual,  but  of  the  nation  and  the  race  it  is  true 
upon  a  much  larger  scale.  The  experiences  of  one  genera- 
tion produce  the  beliefs  of  that  generation.  These  formed 
beliefs  are  taken  over,  already  finished  products,  by  the 
next  generation,  and  are  passed  on  to  subsequent  genera- 
tions as  traditional  dogmas.  They  may  or  may  not  be  veri- 
fiable by  the  experience  of  these  successive  generations. 
When  they  are,  they  are  simply  confirmed  and  adopted. 
When  they  are  not  thus  verified,  they  may  still  persist  as 
settled  matters — choses  juges — while  experience  is  build- 
ing up  a  totally  different  group  of  convictions.  Thus  the 
experience  of  the  past  becomes  the  dogma  of  the  present, 
and  in  cases  where  the  present  experience  does  not  confirm 
them,  dogmas  are  simply  masses  of  petrified  or  embalmed 
experience.    Where  the  dogmas  are  themselves  arranged 

25 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

in  larger  groups,  you  have  the  scientific  system,  the  social 
code,  the  religious  creed.  These  systems,  codes,  and 
creeds  are  the  museums  in  which  masses  of  petrified  ex- 
perience are  preserved,  together  with  more  or  less  dog- 
matic matter  which  is  not  petrified  but  can  be  verified  by 
present  experience,  and  so  continue  alive  and  active. 

That  is  the  initial  process,  but  the  second  is  bound  to 
come  in  reaction — the  movement  from  creed,  system, 
code,  back  to  the  examination  of  the  individual  dogmas 
which  compose  these,  and  from  dogma  back  finally  to  ex- 
perience again.  This  is  the  process  characteristic  of  the 
later,  as  the  former  is  of  the  earlier  periods  of  civilisation. 
In  modern  periods  of  history  we  have  been  living  in  the 
days  of  the  process  from  dogma  back  to  experience.  It 
has  been  largely  unconscious,  an  atmosphere  which  men 
breathe,  a  spirit  which  directs  the  tendencies  of  mind, 
rather  than  an  intentional  and  expressed  movement.  It 
has,  as  we  shall  see,  spread  throughout  the  whole  field  of 
thought.  It  has  been  working  with  a  stronger  leaven 
than  any  other  of  the  forces  of  recent  times. 

But  in  the  course  of  these  slow  and  subconscious  or  un- 
conscious processes,  there  come  moments  of  stress  and 
crisis,  which  for  one  reason  or  another  bring  out  the 
secret  process  into  the  light  of  a  conspicuous  event.  By 
the  fierce  light  of  such  an  event,  and  under  its  violence, 
strain,  and  tension,  the  whole  story  of  our  own  develop- 
ment and  of  that  of  our  times  is  suddenly  interpreted. 
We  see  the  past  foreshortened,  and  mark  its  successive 
stages  towards  this  goal.  Supreme  above  all  other  in- 
stances that  might  be  cited  is  the  Cross  of  Christ  itself. 
In  that  event  there  was  at  once  the  interpretation  and  the 
complete  fulfilment  of  the  process  of  all  the  ages  of  man's 
life  on  earth.  Not  only  His  sufiferings,  but  much  else  was 
finished  when  Jesus  died.  Much  in  the  intellectual,  moral, 
social,  and  all  other  spheres,  came  then  to  completion  and 
to  light.    In  the  new  calvary  of  the  world's  greatest  war 

26 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

we  see  another  such  event.  It  is  probable  that  not  since 
Jesus  cried  "It  is  finished,"  and  gave  up  the  ghost,  has  any- 
such  critical  event  emerged  from  the  processes  of  life. 
The  war  has  come  upon  a  world  literally  seething  with 
processes.  It  has  hastened  and  intensified  these  processes 
violently,  furiously,  until  already  we  see  their  "whole  re- 
sults." But  of  all  the  processes  which  the  war  has,  as  it 
were,  precipitated  in  definite  event,  there  is  none  in  which 
this  precipitation  is  more  striking  than  that  from  dogma 
to  experience.  In  every  field  of  thought  we  can  test  the 
truth  of  this  basic  fact,  but  not  even  the  most  foreseeing 
man  alive  to-day  can  predict  its  ultimate  consequences. 

The  process  from  dogma  back  to  experience  is  evident 
in  the  history  of  education  and  of  science.  The  whole 
trend  of  modern  developments  in  educational  method  is 
back  from  theoretical  to  practical  methods.  Grammar 
e.g.,  which  is  the  philosophy  of  language,  used  to  be 
taught  before  the  language  itself  had  been  acquired :  to- 
day the  order  is  being  rapidly  reversed.  Pupils  are  learn- 
ing language  as  infants  learn  it,  from  actual  speech ;  and 
grammar  is  being  introduced  after,  and  not  before,  the 
materials  have  been  thus  gathered  for  it  to  work  on.  Sim- 
ilarly geography  is  no  longer  taught  in  vacuo,  by  means  of 
lists  of  towns,  rivers,  and  mountains  in  a  land  chosen  at 
random,  and  therefore  without  any  significance  for  the 
imagination.  Modern  teaching  of  geography  begins  with 
the  survey  of  nursery  or  classroom,  and  proceeds  to 
farther  regions  as  the  traveller  proceeds,  experience  merg- 
ing into  imagination  as  the  horizons  sweep  out  and  back. 
The  same  principle  applies  in  a  very  remarkable  degree 
to  science.  The  concealed  knowledge  of  the  alchemist 
and  astrologer,  which  we  commonly  call  magic,  consisted 
of  masses  of  dogma  which  had  been  formed  from  expe- 
rience imperfectly  understood,  had  become  detached  from 
the  experience  which  originated  them,  and  had  acquired 
a  mysterious  and  transcendental  authority  of  their  own, 

27 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

to  question  which  was  regarded  as  sacrilege.  When 
science  discarded  magic  for  experiment,  she  began 
the  process  from  dogma  to  experience,  and  with  that  be- 
ginning she  set  out  for  the  first  time  on  the  career  which 
has  already  led  her  so  brilliantly  and  so  far. 

The  history  of  philosophy  shows  us  the  same  double 
process.  It  is  common  among  those  who  do  not  know, 
to  deride  philosophy  as  a  vain  wandering  in  tangled 
forests  of  meaningless  words,  and  there  have  been  philos- 
ophies which  have  well  deserved  the  derision.  Yet  philos- 
ophy too  began  in  experience.  Its  origins  were  the  hon- 
est endeavours  of  primitive  men  to  understand  and 
explain  the  facts  and  thoughts  common  in  ordinary  life. 
The  questions  asked  by  Socrates  were  generally  very 
simple  questions,  to  which  the  least  learned  men  could 
attempt  answers  without  presumption.  Gicero  demon- 
strated that  the  true  genius  appeals  equally  to  experts  and 
to  common  people.  But  philosophy  also  accumulated  dog- 
mas whose  experience-origins  were  soon  forgotten.  She 
departed  from  the  wise  simplicity  in  which  she  began. 
She  floated,  balloon-like,  among  abstract  principles  infi- 
nitely far  away  from  life  as  men  lived  it,  until  she  earned 
for  herself  that  sinister  reputation  which  has  become  a 
catchword  of  the  thoughtless.  Then  came  Bacon,  the 
first  to  see  clearly  that  the  error  lay  in  the  divorce  of 
dogma  from  experience.  By  substituting  inductive  for 
deductive  logic,  he  recalled  philosophy  from  the  clouds 
to  the  solid  earth,  and  taught  men  to  return  for  truth 
to  experience  from  dogma.  Kant  and  Hegel,  each  in  his 
own  way,  stood  for  the  same  return.  The  process  has 
been  repeated  in  our  own  time  by  Professor  William 
James.  It  is  easy  to  dismiss  him  as  "popular"  or  as  ex- 
treme. It  is  easy  to  deny  to  Pragmatism  the  power  of 
arriving  at  a  metaphysic.  But  the  fact  remains  that  philos- 
ophy as  he  read  it,  showed  the  usual  tendency,  and  had 
been  ballooning  again  until  it  had  almost  got  out  of  sight. 

28 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

From  the  heights  of  its  vaporous  dogma  he  recalled  it  in 
among  the  actual  and  verifiable  facts  of  life,  and  by  doing 
so  he  rendered  signal  service  to  his  time  and  to  the  future. 

The  history  of  religion  and  theology  exhibits  precisely 
the  same  phenomena  as  that  of  science  and  of  philosophy. 
The  key  to  unreality  in  religion  is  its  divorce  from  expe- 
rience. No  shrewder  nor  more  trenchant  words  ever 
came  from  the  pen  of  John  Bunyan  than  those  of  that 
passage  in  which  he  satirises,  in  his  Talkative,  the  type  of 
professing  Christian  who  is  a  theoriser  without  expe- 
rience. 

Like  philosophy,  religion  (and  so  theology)  began  in 
experience.  Its  earliest  records  give  us  primitive  man's 
interpretation  of  the  things  that  were  happening  in  his 
soul.  From  the  first,  as  his  thought  wandered  and 
searched  darkly  among  the  experiences  of  the  unintelligi- 
ble world,  we  can  see  that  the  Spirit  of  God  was  with 
him,  guiding  his  groping  hand,  and  the  gradual  but  steady 
progress  of  revelation  followed.  Yet  always  there  were 
those  who  sought  to  lay  hold  upon  each  new  discovery 
of  divine  truth,  to  detach  it  from  experience,  and  to  invest 
it  with  tyrannical  power  to  check  the  free  development 
of  thought.  Rabbinism,  with  its  passion  for  the  elabora- 
tion of  truth  already  given,  its  constant  fallacy  of  a  revela- 
tion closed  and  sealed  at  some  point  before  contemporary 
times,  and  its  supercilious  habit  of  withdrawing  such 
knowledge  as  had  been  attained,  into  a  secret  lore  to 
which  the  common  worshippers  had  no  access,  had  all 
but  succeeded  in  stripping  popular  religion  of  the  last  ves- 
tige of  intelligibility  and  reality.  Then  Christ  came,  and 
saw  the  axe  lying  at  the  roots  of  the  Upas  Tree  of  Rab- 
binism, ready  to  His  hand.  He  was  at  once  recognised 
as  the  friend  of  the  common  people,  who  heard  Him 
gladly  and  with  astonishment.  He  talked  to  them  about 
lilies  and  about  birds,  about  ploughs  and  candles,  about 
loaves  and  fishes.    Religion,  as  He  proclaimed  it,  was  con- 

29 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

cerned  with  these  rather  than  with  sealed  parchments. 
When  the  Rabbis  met  Him  with  their  Law,  which  they 
had  rendered  meaningless  by  their  endless  commentaries, 
He  proclaimed  a  new  law  embodying  and  interpreting  the 
old,  written  not  on  tables  of  stone  but  on  the  fleshy  tables 
of  the  hearts  of  men.  That  was,  in  Rabbinical  eyes,  His 
crime.  He  "received  sinners,'*  by  which  they  meant  that 
He  talked  to  ordinary  men  in  ordinary  language.  Losing 
all  patience  with  the  bright  spectacle  of  His  ministry 
among  common  men,  they  exclaimed  that  "this  people 
which  knoweth  not  the  law  is  cursed."  But  ignorance  of 
the  law  may  be  the  highest  blessing  for  men,  when  the 
law  has  become  a  thing  aloof  and  deadening,  in  which  all 
contact  between  religion  and  common  life  is  lost.  The 
special  venom  of  this  curse  was  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  He  had  insisted  that  religion  is  a  thing  which 
men  can  understand,  had  drawn  it  down  from  ballooning 
in  their  misty  sky,  and  shown  it  familiarly  walking  with 
them  in  the  ways  of  their  daily  life. 

The  early  Christian  Church  sprang  into  being  out  of 
personal  experience.  Its  charter  may  be  said  to  be  the 
words,  "That  which  we  have  heard,  which  we  have  seen 
with  our  eyes,  which  we  have  looked  upon  and  our  hands 
have  handled  of  the  Word  of  Life  (for  the  life  was  mani- 
fested and  we  have  seen  it  .  .  .)  ;  that  which  we  have 
seen  and  heard  declare  we  unto  you."^  In  their  preach- 
ing, the  apostles  appealed,  not  to  their  own  experience 
only,  but  to  that  of  their  hearers.  Dr.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  points  out  that  "the  apostles  felt  for  common 
ground  with  the  people  whom  they  addressed,"  and  he 
mentions  the  fact  that  the  phrase  "You  all  know,"  or  its 
equivalent,  is  repeated  some  forty  times  in  the  record  of 
their  propaganda.^  The  Church  rose  directly  from  men's 
experience  of  Jesus  Christ.  Its  foundations  were  the 
facts  of  His  life  and  death.    Its  inspiration  was  their  own 

^  1  John  i.  1-3.  2  Lectures  on  Preaching,  i.  pp.  24,  25. 

30 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

personal  experience  of  His  spirit,  and  their  sense  of  one- 
ness with  the  life  of  God  through  Him. 

It  was  experience  that  formed  the  main  criterion  upon 
which  the  canon  of  Scripture  was  determined.  Inspira- 
tion can  never  be  rightly  understood  when  it  is  regarded 
as  an  external  force.  The  spirit  in  a  man  is  the  agent 
through  which  the  Divine  Spirit  works.  The  human 
spirit  has  for  its  task  the  understanding  of  the  facts  of 
life,  and  that  understanding  is  limited  and  determined  by 
the  conceptions  of  the  age  he  lives  in.  These  will  always 
be  more  or  less  inaccurate.  His  knowledge  of  history 
and  of  science  will  be  and  will  remain  that  of  his  con- 
temporaries. Upon  no  such  external  facts  will  the  Divine 
Spirit  enlighten  him.  But  the  Divine  Spirit,  working  with 
such  mixed  materials,  will  direct  him  into  ever  higher  and 
higher  understanding  of  God,  and  of  human  life  in  the 
light  of  God's  purposes  of  righteousness  and  love,  as  he 
discovers  these  playing  upon  his  own  experience  of  life. 
Thus  the  matter  of  inspiration  is  not  facts  but  the  inter- 
pretation of  facts.  Accordingly,  the  criterion  for  inspira- 
tion must  be  the  witness  of  other  lives  to  these  interpreta- 
tions as  being  true  or  false  to  their  own  experience.  If  it 
be  objected  that  this  must  always  be  more  or  less  arbi- 
trary, the  answer  is  that  the  Divine  presence  and  purpose 
is  not  a  human  fancy,  but  a  definite  and  living  fact.  Each 
individual  case  will  doubtless  present  features  of  its  own, 
which  may  differ  from,  or  even  contradict  in  some  details, 
the  experience  of  another.  Yet  in  the  main  the  elements 
common  to  all  subjects  of  the  Divine  Spirit's  operation 
will  so  far  outnumber  the  points  in  which  individual  cases 
differ,  as  to  result  in  a  common  faith,  essentially  the  same 
in  all  ages  and  to  all  Christians.  It  is  true  that  there  is 
a  difference  between  the  effect  of  the  Spirit  upon  those 
who  wrote  the  sacred  books  of  Christendom,  and  His 
work  upon  those  in  later  days  who  read  these  books.  Yet 
that  is  only  a  difference  in  the  detail  of  the  operation. 

31 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

Holy  men  of  old  recognised  in  their  own  experience  the 
working  of  the  Divine  and  wrote  down  the  record  of 
what  they  found.  Later  men  recognise  in  that  record  a 
convincing  interpretation  of  their  own  spiritual  life.  In 
both  cases  the  medium  of  inspiration  is  experience. 

When,  later  on,  we  come  to  the  time  when  creeds  were 
formed,  we  find  the  same  principle  again  at  work.  Creeds 
are  repositories  of  dogma  which  began  as  records  of  ex- 
perience. Take  even  such  an  elaborate  and  apparently 
abstract  creed  as  the  Athanasian,  and  examine  it  in  the 
light  of  history.  It  will  be  found  that  every  sentence  of  it 
is  directed  against  one  or  more  than  one  heresy.  The 
Church  never  knew  her  faith,  in  the  shape  of  formulae, 
until  it  was  denied.  Then  her  sensitive  spiritual  con- 
sciousness was  wounded.  She  shrank  back  from  what 
she  definitely  knew  she  did  not  believe,  and  so  she  found, 
one  by  one,  her  positive  positions.  But  the  heresies  were 
also  the  aberrations  and  misinterpretations  of  living  expe- 
rience, and  the  denials  of  them  were  produced  by  the  nor- 
mal experience  of  the  Christian  soul.  In  many  cases  the 
direct  play  of  experience  was  obscured  by  traditional  ac- 
ceptances and  traditional  denials.  But  the  ultimate  source 
of  creed  and  heresy  alike  lay  in  the  living  experience  of 
men.  No  one  will  deny  the  necessity  for  the  expression  of 
experience  in  dogmas  and  for  the  arranging  of  dogmas  in 
creeds.  The  Church  is  a  unity,  and  common  standards 
of  this  sort  were  indispensable  to  its  corporate  life.  But 
it  so  happened  that  the  first  great  creed-making  age  was 
that  in  which  Greek  philosophy  was  the  dominant  in- 
fluence upon  the  world's  intellectual  life.  Dr.  Hatch,  in 
his  Hibbert  Lectures,  has  shown  how  strong  and  how 
effective  that  influence  was,  in  first  crystallising  and 
then  fossilising  religious  thought.  The  Church  gained 
from  Greek  philosophy  much  that  was  valuable,  of  system 
and  of  form — ^valuable  to  clearness  of  thinking  and  con- 
sistency of  structure.     But  she  paid  the  price  in  vitality. 

32 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

Dogmas  that  had  been  caught  in  the  complex  net  of 
Greek  philosophy  had  already  become  detached  from  the 
living  experience  in  which  they  had  first  arisen.  To  be 
an  orthodox  theologian  one  required  also  to  be  an  expert 
philosopher ;  and  of  all  believers,  however  inexpert  philo- 
sophically, orthodoxy  was  demanded.  Theology,  as  Dr. 
Coffin  has  said,  is  excellent  so  long  as  it  is  living  theol- 
ogy;^ i.e.  so  long  as  its  dogmas  are  held  as  rescripts  of 
living  experience.  When  it  becomes  dead,  in  the  sense 
of  being  detached  from  living  experience,  an4  discussed, 
affirmed,  or  denied  as  a  system  of  abstract  propositions, 
it  may  prove  to  be  not  only  a  hindrance  but  an  enemy  to 
faith.2 

The  artificiality  of  the  theological  system  which  was 
growing  up  under  their  hands,  nay  the  very  completeness 
of  that  system,  might  have  warned  the  makers  of  the 
Early  Christian  creeds  that  those  creeds  must  be  kept 
in  vital  touch  with  the  experience  out  of  which  they 
sprang,  and  so  left  fluid  and  free  to  find  their  own. natural 
development.  Unfortunately,  this  was  not  what  hap- 
pened. The  growing  temporal  and  spiritual  power  of  the 
Church  tempted  churchmen,  and  they  fell.  True,  many 
mystics  kept  for  themselves  the  direct  contact  between 
dogma  and  experience,  and  their  wonderful  lives  were 
sometimes  the  directest  channels  through  which  the  grace 
of  God  flowed  out  to  men.  But  the  Western  Church,  no 
less  than  its  Eastern  rival,  drew  the  ideal  of  orthodoxy 
farther  and  farther  away  from  living  experience,  until 

"^  In  a  Day  of  Social  Rebuilding,  p.  10. 

2  "Philosophical  systems  are  like  those  thin  threads  of  plati- 
num that  are  inserted  in  astronomical  telescopes  to  divide  the 
field  into  equal  parts.  These  filaments  are  useful  for  the  ac- 
curate observation  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  but  they  are  not  part 
of  the  heavens.  It  is  good  to  have  threads  of  platinum  in  tele- 
scopes; but  we  must  not  forget  it  was  the  instrument-maker 
put  them  there"  (Anatole  France,  The  Garden  of  Epicurus, 
p.  117). 

33 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

there  fell  upon  the  world  the  dark  night  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  Reformation  was  simply  the  return  of  the 
Church  from  dogma  and  ritual  to  experience.  In  the 
words  of  Dr.  George  Adam  Smith,  "Remember  how  our 
reformers  had  to  grapple  with  the  hard  mechanism  in 
the  worship  of  their  time,  and  how  they  bade  the  heart 
of  every  worshipper  speak — speak  for  itself  to  God  with 
rational  and  sincere  words.  So,  in  place  of  the  frozen 
ritualism  of  the  Church,  there  broke  forth  from  all  lands 
of  the  Reformation,  as  though  it  were  birds  in  springtime, 
a  great  burst  of  hymns  and  prayers,  with  the  clear  notes 
of  the  gospel  in  the  common  tongue."^ 

But  Reformation  theology  soon  became  detached  from 
living  experience,  and  passed  into  abstract  systems  of 
dogma  whose  points  of  contact  with  human  life  were  few 
indeed.  Stripped  of  the  charm  of  ritual  and  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  of  service,  stripped  even  of  the  artistic 
beauty  of  Gothic  architecture,  and  jewel-like  glass,  and 
splendid  music,  dogma  became  even  more  arid  and  re- 
pellent than  it  had  been  in  the  Roman  cathedrals  and 
churches  of  an  earlier  day.  It  would  be  difficult  to  con- 
ceive of  anything  less  human  than  the  Protestant  con- 
troversies regarding  the  covenants  or  the  decrees.  In 
some  quarters  this  remoteness  from  man's  ordinary  in- 
terests was  openly  acknowledged.  "Jupiter"  Carlyle  saw 
nothing  inappropriate  in  praising  a  ministerial  friend  as 
"a  delightful  fellow,  and  wholly  devoid  of  enthusiasm." 
It  has  been  said  of  Lord  Palmerston  that  he  "allowed 
religion  to  come  no  farther  into  the  affairs  of  ordinary 
life  than  suited  a  country  gentleman's  ideas  of  the  fitness 
of  things."^  With  the  Reformation  also,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence of  its  freedom  for  each  individual  Christian  in 
matters  of  religion,  there  arose  a  luxuriant  denomination- 
alism,  which  divided  the  Protestant  Church  into  a  large 

1  The  Book  of  the  Twelve  Prophets,  p.  343. 

2  Justin  M'Carthy,  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  ch.  xlvi. 

34 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

number  of  separate  sections.  Naturally,  each  section  felt 
itself  pledged  to  the  testimony  for  which  its  fathers  had 
seceded  from  the  main  body  of  the  Church ;  and  in  some 
quarters  those  testimonies  came,  as  has  been  already  said, 
to  acquire  an  importance  and  an  emphasis  as  matters  in- 
trinsically important,  long  after  they  had  ceased  to  be 
living  questions.  In  these  ways  Reformation  theology 
grew  abstract  and  was  divorced  from  experience,  balloon- 
ing among  controversies  and  ideas  far  removed  from  the 
living  interests  of  the  Christian  soul. 

The  return  to  experience  was  bound  to  come.  The 
hunger  of  man's  spirit  compelled  it.  It  came  in  succes- 
sive revivals,  such  as  those  associated  with  the  names  of 
Wesley,  Whitefield,  Moody.  The  actual  teachings  of 
these  and  other  leaders  of  revivals  did  not  differ  greatly 
from  the  dogmas  of  the  dead  orthodoxy  whose  slumbers 
they  disturbed.  But  they  brought  those  dogmas  into  vital 
connection  with  experience,  and  appealed  not  to  abstract 
truths  but  to  the  actual  facts  of  life. 

In  theology  the  most  famous  protagonist  for  the  return 
from  dogma  to  experience  is  Albrecht  Ritschl.  The  vio- 
lence of  the  opposition  with  which  he  and  his  school  have 
been  assailed  has  served  to  familiarise  men  with  a  system, 
the  central  principle  of  which  most  men  will  find  helpful, 
and  some  absolutely  necessary,  if  they  are  to  preserve 
their  Christian  faith.  Already  it  has  given  rise  to  an 
enormous  literature,  both  in  opposition  and  defence. 
One  of  the  most  valuable  English  contributions  is  that  of 
Principal  Garvie,  a  conspicuously  fair  and  masterly  vol- 
ume.^ Of  the  three  leading  representatives  of  the  school, 
— Harnack,  Herrmann,  and  Kaftan, — the  mind  of  Herr- 
mann is  l3y  far  the  most  congenial  to  the  point  of  view. 
For  the  teaching  of  Ritschlianism  a  peculiarly  sensitive, 
tender,  and  even  mystical  nature  is  required,  and  it  must 
be  confessed  that  in  these  respects  the  founder  of  the 

1  The  Ritschlian  Theology. 

35 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

school  is  somewhat  deficient.  Herrmann's  Communion 
with  God  is  the  finest  as  well  as  the  most  popular  exposi- 
tion of  the  doctrine,  which  there  reveals  its  value  for  the 
devotional  life  of  the  soul. 

Ritschl,  while  he  wages  an  unremitting  warfare  against 
metaphysics  as  a  basis  for  theology,  does  not  discard 
theology  as  such.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  the  exponent  of 
an  extremely  complex  and  comprehensive  theology.  His 
system  of  theology,  however,  has  been  accepted  in  its  en- 
tirety by  none  of  his  followers.  Each  of  them  breaks 
away  from  him  at  so  many  points,  and  each  of  them 
differs  at  so  many  points  from  other  followers,  that  there 
can  hardly  be  said  to  exist  any  Ritschlian  theology  at  all. 
But  that  very  breaking  up  of  the  school  into  so  many  di- 
verse theological  positions,  forces  back  our  attention  all 
the  more  strongly  on  the  central  principle  of  the  system, 
on  which  alone  Ritschl  and  all  his  followers  are  agreed. 
That  principle  is  the  substitution  of  experience  for  dogma 
as  the  basis  for  Christian  belief. 

As  has  been  already  indicated,  Ritschl  does  not  deny  the 
validity  of  dogma,  although  he  denies  the  validity  of  the 
ancient  Christian  creeds,  founded  under  Greek  influence 
upon  metaphysics.  Ritschl  actually  prepares  a  new  creed 
of  his  own.  But  he  founds  all  dogma  not  on  metaphysics 
but  on  experience.  By  this  he  does  not  mean  to  advocate 
individualistic  mysticism,  which  he  expressly  repudiates 
and  to  which  he  does  scant  justice.  The  experience  on 
which  he  would  found  his  dogma  is  connected  directly  not 
with  the  mystical  but  with  the  historic  Christ.  The  effect 
of  Christ  upon  the  soul  is  seen  in  certain  definite  reli- 
gious experiences,  convictions  with  their  consequent  emo- 
tions, regarding  sin,  and  goodness,  and  all  the  other  mat- 
ters of  the  Christian  life.  It  is  difficult  sometimes  to  de- 
termine whether  by  the  effect  of  Christ  upon  the  soul 
he  means  the  effect  produced  by  the  study  of  the  historic 
facts   of   Christ's   life   and   death   and   resurrection,   or 

36 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

whether  he  means  to  indicate  the  direct  personal  effect 
of  the  living  Christ  upon  the  soul  of  the  individual.  It 
would  appear  that  both  of  these  influences  are  included 
in  his  view.  The  effects  thus  produced  give  rise  to  dogma 
in  the  form  of  "value-judgments.''  These  judgments  are 
not  convictions  as  to  what  Christ  is  in  Himself,  arrived 
at  by  metaphysical  dialectic;  they  are  the  convictions  of 
our  own  experience  of  what  Christ  is  to  us.  They  are 
saved  from  the  condemnation  of  mere  subjective  beliefs 
by  the  fundamental  acceptance  of  the  facts  of  Christ's 
life  as  historic  and  objective.  Nor  are  they  an  excuse 
for  intellectual  cowardice  or  laziness,  which  gives  up  the 
quest  for  ultimate  reality,  and  contents  itself  with  the  will 
to  believe  whatever  it  finds  helpful  or  convenient.  Since 
Christ  is  real,  the  convictions  which  arise  from  contact 
with  Christ  are  real  so  far  as  they  go.  If  they  do  not  go 
as  far  as  a  reasoned  and  complete  metaphysic,  they  give 
us  light  enough  to  live  by.^ 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  may  be  taken  in  illustra- 
tion of  the  two  methods  of  reaching  faith.  Vast  masses 
of  metaphysical  argument  have  been  accumulated  on  that 
doctrine,  with  its  consequent  dogmas  as  to  the  two  natures 
and  one  person  of  Christ.  The  various  results  thus 
reached  have  no  doubt  satisfied  the  theologians  who 
achieved  them.  But  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  for  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  believers  they  mean  nothing 
whatever,  and  for  the  far  greater  number  of  persons 
who  profess  no  beliefs,  they  present  only  a  sanctified 
mathematical  chimera.  Yet  every  Christian  soul  has  ac- 
tually discovered  the  Divine  Trinity  in  his  own  expe- 

1  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Ritschlianism  is  an  essentially 
ethical  interpretation  of  Christianity,  which  it  regards  as  the 
expression  of  the  ethical  view  of  the  world.  The  system  has  been 
forcibly  described  as  "Kant  done  into  the  New  Testament." 
"Faith  in  God,"  says  Lotze,  "is  of  the  nature  of  a  deed,  and  is  to 
be  ascribed  to  character,  and  the  saying  well  expresses  the 
Ritschlian  view. 

37 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

rience.  There  have  been  times  when  in  loneHness  and 
helplessness  of  spirit  he  sought  and  found  the  Highest  in 
the  sense  of  Fatherhood.  At  other  times,  driven  by  pas- 
sion, shamed  by  remorse,  or  crushed  by  disaster,  the  only 
form  in  which  the  Highest  seemed  real  to  him  was  in  the 
Cross  of  Calvary.  Yet  again,  in  the  search  after  knowl- 
edge, the  pursuit  of  art,  or  the  energetic  striving  of  enter- 
prise, he  found  inspiration,  enthusiasm,  and  consecration 
of  these  departments  of  ordinary  human  life  only  in  the 
sense  of  a  mysterious  indwelling  and  assisting  presence — 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

Nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  of  the  present  age 
than  this  general  tendency  and  process  from  dogma  to 
experience,  of  which  Ritschl  is  so  notable  an  exponent  in 
the  department  of  theology.  Benjamin  Kidd  and  Mr. 
Arthur  Balfour  may  be  taken  as  typical  exponents  of  the 
modern  reaction  against  reason  as  the  foundation  of  faith, 
and  so  against  the  metaphysical  systems  of  theology.  M. 
Anatole  France,  in  lighter  vein,  and  with  his  own  peculiar 
blending  of  ridicule  and  wistfulness,  has  almost  founded 
a  school  of  anti-rationalism.  Professor  Bergson  has  ac- 
tually founded  such  a  school.  For  him  "the  universe  is 
not  a  completed  system  of  reality,  of  which  it  is  only  our 
knowledge  that  is  imperfect,"  but  /'the  universe  is  "itself 
becoming.  Consequently  the  value  of  the  philosophy  and 
the  conviction  that  it  will  bring  to  the  mind  will  be  seen 
to  depend  ultimately  not  on  the  irrefutability  of  its  logic, 
but  on  the  reality  and  significance  of  the  simple  facts  of 
consciousness  to  which  it  directs  our  attention.'*  "The 
fundamental  character  of  Bergson's  philosophy  is  ...  to 
emphasise  the  primary  importance  of  life  as  giving  the 
key  to  the  nature  of  knowledge."  "Knowledge  is  for  life, 
and  not  life  for  knowledge."  Alongside  of  these  names 
we  may  place  that  of  the  late  Professor  G.  J.  Romanes, 
from  the  records  of  whose  stormy  passage  from  agnos- 
ticism to  faith  many  sayings  might  be  quoted  in  the  pres- 

38 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

ent  connection.  The  most  significant  of  all  such  sayings 
is  the  following:  "I  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  partly  on  grounds  of  reason,  partly  on  those  of  in- 
tuition, but  chiefly  on  both  combined ;  so  to  speak,  it  is  my 
whole  character  which  accepts  the  whole  system  of  which 
the  doctrine  of  personal  immortality  forms  an  essential 
part."^  This  is  but  another  way  of  expressing  the  de- 
pendence of  dogma  on  experience,  and  that  is  the  point 
on  which  all  the  authors  quoted  are  at  one.  It  does  not 
fall  within  our  present  scope  to  discuss  their  ^  particular 
systems  of  thought  or  lines  of  argument.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary that  we  should  consent  to  any  of  these  in  part  or  in 
whole.  The  point  to  note  is  that  each  of  them  in  his 
own  way,  and  many  others  besides  them,  are  represettta- 
tive  of  the  practical  and  experiential,  as  contrasted  with 
the  purely  theoretical  and  metaphysical,  method  of  arriv- 
ing at  truth.  If  it  be  objected  that  the  truth  which  can 
be  reached  in  this  fashion  is  only  provisional,  and  that  it 
offers  no  solution  to  the  ultimate  problems  of  existence, 
the  answer  is  given  with  irresistible  force  by  Mr.  Bal- 
four in  the  form  of  a  tu  quoque}  No  system  of  beliefs 
can  claim  that  it  rests  upon  a  sure  foundation  of  reasoned 
metaphysic.  Even  physical  science  itself,  which  claims 
such  absolute  precision  and  completeness  of  knowledge, 
must  begin  by  making  huge  assumptions  which  it  can  by 
no  means  prove.  All  knowledge,  all  faith,  of  whatsoever 
kind,  is  ultimately  "founded  upon  the  floods."  It  floats, 
as  the  ancients  conceived  the  earth  as  floating,  islanded 
upon  a  sea  of  insoluble  mystery.  At  its  best  it  can  but  re- 
cord the  indisputable  facts  of  experience,  which  it  must 
trust  in  order  to  live  upon  its  floating  island,  and  which 
prove  to  be  reliable  for  the  purposes  of  life. 

We  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  this  part  of  our  subject 
for  two  reasons.     First,  to  show  that  the  tendency  to  re- 

1  Thoughts  on  Religion,  p.  145. 
^Foundations  of  Belief. 

39 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

treat  from  dogma  to  experience  is  one  of  the  most  wide- 
spread and  important  of  all  the  intellectual  tendencies  of 
our  time,  and  that  it  must  therefore  be  taken  account  of 
by  the  men  who  have  to  preach  to  those  who  think  and 
read  along  modern  lines.  Second,  because  it  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  leaders  of  philosophic  and  religious  thought. 
It  is  the  way  in  which  ordinary  men  and  women  think  at 
the  present  time.  For  twenty  years  I  have  been  address- 
ing students  in  Edinburgh  and  other  British  Universi- 
ties. Many  of  these,  especially  medical  students,  were 
quite  ignorant  of  the  literature  which  I  have  quoted,  and 
had  made  no  study  of  philosophy  or  theology.  Yet  it  was 
through  experience  and  not  dogma  that  they  were  able 
to  find  their  way  into  faith.  The  spirit  of  every  age  is 
determined  by  tendencies  of  thought  of  which  it  is  igno- 
rant and  whose  books  it  has  not  read.  Without  knowing 
why  it  does  so,  it  follows  these  tendencies,  and  finds  itself 
unable  to  do  otherwise.  Most  of  us  have  no  knowledge 
of  metaphysic,  and  no  opportunity  of  acquiring  such 
knowledge.  Yet  the  reasoned  conclusions  of  contempo- 
rary experts  in  thought  become  the  unconscious  axioms 
of  the  inexpert,  the  atmosphere  which  they  breathe.  It 
is  not  so  much  that  they  object  to  this  or  that  particular 
traditional  dogma,  as  that  they  are  alienated  from  the 
habit  of  mind  which  frames,  trusts,  and  lives  by  dogma. 
It  is  experience  alone  which  they  find  convincing,  and 
he  who  would  build  up  a  faith  must  use  this  method.  In 
the  region  of  experience  he  will  find  general  consent, 
while  in  the  abstract  region  he  will  find  as  many  divergent 
opinions  as  there  are  men.  In  this  region  also  he  will  be 
dealing  with  truth  which  is  alive  with  impulses  towards 
conduct,  and  not  with  dispassionate  and  purely  dialectic 
habits  of  mind. 

It  may  be  said  that  there  is  nothing  new  in  this,  nor 
anything  distinctively  characteristic  of  modern  times. 
Luther  may  be  quoted,  and  the  Puritans,  and  all  evangel- 

40 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

istic  leaders,  as  instances  of  strictly  experiential  faith. 
There  is,  however,  a  difference.  These  were  indeed  ex- 
periential, and  it  was  to  their  living  contact  with  experi- 
ence that  they  owed  their  power.  But  along  with  their  ex- 
perience they  retained  complete  systems  of  highly 
metaphysical  dogma,  and  they  interpreted  experience  in 
terms  of  these.  For  many,  if  not  most,  of  those  to  whom 
we  speak  to-day  that  is  no  longer  the  case.  The  action 
of  their  religious  life  is  not  that  of  reconciling  their  ex- 
perience with  a  given  and  undisputed  systerri  of  meta- 
physical theology.  It  has  no  such  preconceived  set  of 
certainties  to  act  upon.  It  begins  with  religious  experi- 
ence alone,  and  seeks  to  discover  what  theological  facts 
are  necessary  to  account  for  that  experience.  The  system 
which  it  will  thus  arrive  at  will  at  the  utmost  contain  a 
far  simpler  and  a  far  smaller  set  of  theological  convictions 
than  those  of  former  days. 

It  is  true  that  the  line  I  have  been  following  has  its 
dangers.  He  who  abides  in  the  fortress  of  dogma  is  in  a 
far  safer  way  than  he  who  sallies  out  upon  the  open 
plain  among  the  facts  of  life.  His  views  of  all  things  are 
prescribed  to  him,  and  they  are  fixed  by  statutes  for  which 
he  has  no  responsibility.  Even  his  forms  of  expression 
are  formulated  by  convention.  He  who  ventures  forth 
from  that  fortress  takes  many  risks.  With  the  best  of 
good  intentions,  and  with  a  genuine  religious  life  behind 
him,  he  may  easily  go  astray  amid  the  mazes  of  human 
experience.  He  may  even  dread  the  doom  of  Nadab  and 
Abihu,  who  burnt  strange  fire  in  the  temple  of  the  Lord. 
These  men  belonged  to  that  ill-fated  family  of  Aaron 
whose  misfortune  it  was  to  deal  too  familiarly  with  re- 
ligious things,  for  whom  these  things  proved  too  danger- 
ous, and  each  one  of  whom  paid  the  price — the  sister  in 
leprosy,  the  brothers  in  destruction.  They  too  had  been 
on  the  mountain  with  Moses  and  had  seen  the  glory  of 
the  Lord.    Yet  that  did  not  avail  them  in  the  day  of  their 

41 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

presumption.  But  there  is  another  thing  to  be  remem- 
bered. Not  all  who  venture  beyond  the  safety  of  pre- 
scribed custom  perish.  Samuel  and  Elijah  also  are  re- 
ported to  have  offered  irregular  and  illegal  sacrifices.  In 
like  manner  it  is  only  safe  for  the  theologian  to  venture 
upon  the  new  ground  of  experience  if  he  has  faithfully 
mastered  the  old  ground  of  Christian  dogma.  He  must 
understand  well  what  it  has  meant  to  men  and  done  for 
them,  how  it  arose  and  what  it  expressed.  Then  and  not 
till  then,  is  he  at  liberty  to  interpret  it  anew  and  to  apply 
to  it  the  test  of  experience. 

But  in  a  day  like  this,  a  day  when  thought  everywhere 
is  daring  and  when  faith  is  on  its  trial  before  the  new  ne- 
cessities and  new  demands  of  life,  adventure  is  the  duty 
of  all  who  preach.  "And  where  is  faith,"  exclaimed  Ed- 
ward Irving,  ''if  thus  we  are  to  travel  by  sight?  This 
prudence  is  the  death  of  faith :  it  leaves  it  nothing  to  do 
whatever :  for,  when  all  is  seen  and  calculated  to  a  nicety, 
where  is  there  any  more  trust  in  God?  A  Christian's 
life — a  Christian  minister's  life — is  one  great  series  of 
imprudences."^  There  must  always  be  a  certain  element 
of  adventure  in  effective  preaching.  In  Chesterton's  well- 
known  phrase,  "the  daisy  has  a  ring  of  red,"  and  the 
white  flower  of  faith  too  has  its  tinge  of  passionate 
daring.  Robertson  of  Brighton,  when  attacked  by  a 
representative  of  cautious  orthodoxy,  answered  every  new 
assault  by  the  words,  "I  don't  care."  Losing  his  temper, 
his  assailant  exclaimed,  "Well,  Mr.  Robertson,  you  know 
what  happened  to  Don't  Care."  "Yes,  madam,"  was  his 
reply,  "they  crucified  Him  on  Calvary."  There  is,  indeed, 
a  type  of  character  which  "cares  particularly  for  what  is 
unsafe  in  life,"  and  such  an  adventurer  may  be  justly  re- 
garded as  an  unsafe  guide  in  the  pulpit.  But  it  is  not  for 
the  mere  sake  of  adventure  that  the  preacher  of  to-day 
must  often  go  upon  the  "dangerous  edge  of  things."    It  is 

^John  the  Baptist,  Collected  Writings,  vol.  ii. 

42 


DOGMA  AND  EXPERIENCE 

for  the  souls  of  men  and  for  the  love  of  Christ.  A  famous 
Scottish  preacher  of  the  last  generation  was  warned  that 
some  of  his  teaching  was  "the  thin  end  of  the  wedge." 
"And  which  end  of  the  wedge  should  you  put  in?"  he  re- 
plied. There  are  many  logs  to  be  split  to-day  before  we 
can  build  the  House  of  Life,  or  the  Temple  of  the  Lord. 
Of  these  that  unwritten  saying  of  the  Master  holds  good, 
"Split  the  wood,  and  you  will  find  Me  there."  In  the 
solid  blocks  of  our  traditional  orthodoxy  there  are  un- 
doubtedly many  things  which  to  the  ordinary'  man  are 
sheer  unreality.  Some  things  there  are  which  exist  only 
in  the  imagination  of  theologians.  These  are  hallowed 
by  tradition  until  they  have  become  sacrosanct,  as  all  fe- 
tishes are.  Hence  it  follows  that  no  man  who  is  not  pre- 
pared to  shock  a  number  of  excellent  people  is  fit  for  the 
Kingdom  of  heaven — he  is  certainly  not  fit  for  the  pulpit 
of  any  intellectually  and  spiritually  awakened  land  on 
earth.  And,  after  all,  it  is  the  wealth  of  our  doctrines, 
and  not  their  precariousness,  that  makes  us  demand  free- 
dom for  their  utterance.  Spaciousness,  not  dogmatism, 
is  the  sign  of  conviction  in  preaching,  which  must  relate 
itself  to  the  rest  of  life  and  not  be  afraid  that  it  will  be 
imperilled  by  any  such  relation. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher^  has  called  us  to  "come  back  to 
the  conditions  of  apostolic  times,  when  men  were  so  emi- 
nent in  their  success  in  winning  souls."  But  this  means, 
among  other  things,  "back  to  experience."  Every  part 
of  your  own  experience,  even  the  most  humiliating  parts 
of  it,  belongs  of  right  to  those  to  whom  you  minister. 
Also  everything  which  you  have  observed  in  their  experi- 
ence. Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  our  time  than 
the  superseding  of  metaphysics  by  psychology.  "The  se- 
cret of  fertility  is  the  study  of  human  nature."  You  must 
know  human  nature  before  you  can  teach  it  anything. 
The  world  is  very  artificial.    Its  class  divisions  with  their 

1  Lectures  on  Preaching,  first  series,  pp.  19,  56,  etc. 

43 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

class  prejudices,  its  routine  of  undisputed  and  accepted 
formulae,  which  regulate  the  larger  part  of  its  conduct, 
are  still  a  formidable  barrier  against  progress,  and  a  se- 
rious paralysing  force  operating  against  the  life  of  the 
human  spirit.  Much  of  the  Christian  dogma  has  been 
taken  over  by  this  conventional  world,  and  adopted  as 
part  of  its  unchallengeable  prejudice.  From  the  grip  of 
this  dead  hand  we  must  break  away  to  living  experience. 
This  defiance  of  insensate  conventionality,  this  breaking 
away  from  brute  routine  of  thought,  is  "the  victory 
that  overcometh  the  world." 

A  final  word  is  necessary.  When  we  urge  the  return 
to  experience,  we  do  not  mean  to  confine  ourselves  to 
what  has  been  or  is  already  experienced.  The  non-Chris- 
tian part  of  our  congregations  has  had  an  experience 
of  life  which  is  deficient  in  some  of  the  highest  of  life's 
possibilities.  Even  the  Christian  part  has  often  been  seek- 
ing after  a  conventional  sequence  of  religious  experi- 
ences, and  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  force  religious 
experience  to  conform  to  that  one  type.  The  result  of 
this  has  often  been  hypocrisy  on  the  one  hand,  and  despair 
on  the  other :  hypocrisy  of  those  whose  consciences  were 
asleep,  and  who  were  willing  to  profess  experiences  which 
they  never  had ;  despair  on  the  part  of  many  honest  and 
earnest  people,  to  whom  the  conventional  regulation  re- 
ligious feelings  did  not  come.  We  must  aim  at  leading  the 
non-Christians  to  new  experience,  not  permitting  them  to 
be  content  with  what  they  already  have,  but  insisting 
on  further  experience  which  they  ought  to  have.  The 
Christians  in  the  prison-house  of  routine  we  must  lead 
out  into  the  open  air  and  the  broad  world,  persuading 
them  that  Christianity  comes  to  each  man  in  an  experi- 
ence of  his  own,  and  helping  each  man  to  find  that  which 
is  his,  and  not  another's. 


44 


rr\] 


LECTURE  III 

Then  came  the  War 

^'^  ■"^HEN  came  the  war/'  And  the  war  has  been  so 
stupendous  an  event  in  history  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  of  anything  to-day  except  in 
terms  of  it.  Human  life  is  bigger  than  this  war,  and  the 
war  is  after  all  but  an  incident  in  it.  Yet  it  is  probably 
the  most  important  incident  that  has  ever  occurred.  It  is 
at  once  critical  and  formative.  Crashing  through  all  ar- 
tificialities, proving  all  things,  it  has  applied  the  breaking 
strain  to  every  part  of  the  structure  of  human  institutions. 
And  in  doing  so  it  has  prepared  the  way  for  a  future 
which  until  now  has  always  been  a  dream,  and  which 
has  suddenly  become  a  living  possibility  and  an  urgent 
duty. 

I  have  seen  two  great  nations  going  into  this  war.  In 
Chicago,  on  31st  March  1917,  just  before  the  Declaration 
of  War  in  Congress,  I  sat  behind  the  speakers  on  the  plat- 
form of  that  vast  gathering  which  gave  expression  to  the 
pent-up  emotions  of  the  multitude.  Great  men  spoke 
that  night,  and  the  things  they  said  were  great.  The  au- 
dience rose  to  its  feet  over  and  over  again,  its  soul  moved 
and  swung  passionately  to  and  fro,  like  the  innumerable 
flags  that  it  waved  wildly  in  the  air.  But  as  I  gazed,  my 
eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  the  magnificent  spectacle  grew 
blurred  and  indistinct.  Instead  of  it  I  saw  the  darkened 
streets  of  a  town  in  France,  where,  under  a  lashing  rain, 
a  regiment  of  British  boys  was  marching  to  the  railway 
station,  en  route  for  their  first  going  up  to  the  front. 
And  then  I  stood  upon  that  low  hill  in  Flanders  where, 

45 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

on  the  Christmas  Day  of  1916,  I  had  first  caught  sight  of 
the  Line — the  long,  irregular,  loose-flung  stream  of  faint 
sedge  colour,  along  which  the  men  of  two  hostile  nations 
watched  each  other,  and  in  whose  strip  of  No  Man's 
Land  they  met.  I  saw  again  the  blood-red  sun  of  Ypres 
setting  behind  a  network  of  blasted  trees,  till  night  fell, 
and  far  and  near  the  horizon  was  illuminated  by  countless 
lights  that  soared  and  floated  over  the  opposing  trenches. 
Since  then  I  have  been  with  the  armies  at  almost  every 
point  of  the  British  front.  I  know  the  weird  city  of  the 
trenches,  with  its  named  streets  of  underground  habita- 
tions, its  stores  and  forges,  its  manifold  life  and  labour, 
its  watching  sentries  and  homeless  dreams  of  home. 
From  the  Hill  of  Kemmel  I  watched  the  battle  that  we 
fought  for  Holebeke.  Hour  after  hour  we  waited  in  the 
dark,  the  silence  broken  only  by  an  occasional  sporadic 
gun.  Then,  at  the  appointed  moment,  the  signal  flamed 
out  in  crimson,  the  barrage  thundered,  and  the  whole 
earth  seemed  on  fire,  until  the  dawn  stole  away  the  bril- 
liance and  the  battle  raged  on  through  drizzling  rain. 
Then,  for  days  and  nights,  we  received  the  walking 
wounded,  weary  lads  who  had  been  in  the  shell-holes 
drenched  with  rain  for  one  day,  two  days,  three  days  and 
nights.  We  saw  the  operating  tables  of  the  theatres  in 
the  clearing  stations  just  behind  the  line,  where  surgeons 
raced  with  death  and  gambled  against  terrific  odds  for 
men's  lives.  I  dwelt  among  the  wooden  crosses,  and  never 
a  walk  but  led  me  from  wayside  grave  to  wayside  grave. 
I  saw  little  companies  of  men  with  the  red  hackle  on  their 
bonnets,  watching  a  cinema  through  a  winter's  evening 
across  a  pool  of  water  in  a  flooded  tent.  I  have  seen  the 
Virgin  of  Albert,  on  the  spire  of  ''La  Basilique  Martyre,*' 
lying  along  gigantic  and  horizontal,  as  if  to  force  her 
Child  to  turn  His  eyes  downward  from  the  sky  and  see 
for  Himself  the  miseries  of  the  earth  He  came  to  save. 
I  can  hear  now,  and  shall  evermore  hear,  the  voice  of  the 

46 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

Great  War.  At  the  sea,  amid  the  broken  clay  of  the 
breastworks,  a  cry ;  on  the  crests  of  the  long  ridges  from 
Passchendaele  to  Vimy  a  shout  of  victory ;  on  the  spacious 
fields  of  the  Somme,  where  Nature  had  thrown  its  green 
mantle  over  the  shell-holes  of  the  tortured  earth,  and  the 
flowers  that  sprang  from  that  wide  and  level  lawn  were 
the  white  crosses  of  the  dead,  a  silence,  in  which  there 
was  more  of  triumph  than  of  sadness. 

From  such  visions,  crowding  one's  memory  so  strangely, 
one  turns  back  to  the  whole  question  of  war  and  its  justi- 
fication. We  see  already  the  harvest  of  all  this  bloody 
sowing,  and  by  God's  grace  we  shall  see  it  still  more 
abundantly  in  the  years  to  come.  But  not  on  that  account, 
not  on  any  account,  dare  we  even  toy  with  the  doctrine 
that  the  fact  of  war  is  justified  by  its  fruits.  In  German 
books  published  before  the  war,  it  was  the  fashion  to 
praise  war  as  an  essential  element  in  human  life  upon  the 
earth  and  to  accept  it  as  part  of  the  necessary  order. 
In  every  nation  there  was  a  considerable  body  of  opinion 
to  the  same  effect.  I  think  the  world  has  been  cured  of 
that  illusion.  If  Sherman  was  justified  in  his  famous 
saying  that  "war  is  hell,"  uttered  in  connection  with  your 
Civil  War,  how  infinitely  more  evident  and  more  com- 
manding the  words  must  be,  now  that  science  has  com- 
bined with  militarism  to  make  war  what  it  is.  It  is  only 
because  war  had  become  an  absolute  moral  necessity 
through  the  evil  will  of  a  comparatively  small  group  of 
men,  that  it  was  forced  upon  the  earth  and  became  the 
sacred  duty  of  the  Allied  nations.  War  deliberately  pro- 
voked as  a  means  to  ambition  is  the  most  criminal  act  of 
malice  possible  to  man.  War  as  an  end  in  itself  is  a 
thing  wholly  devilish,  the  mere  insanity  of  the  damned. 

Yet  in  this  terriblest  of  all  wars,  we  who  have  fought 
it  to  a  finish  can  see  redeeming  elements.  We  did  not 
seek  it.  We  sought  to  avoid  it  until  no  possible  alternative 
was  left  to  men  of  goodwill.    We  saw — we  were  forced  to 

47 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

see — that,  hideous  as  it  is,  there  are  things  worse  than 
war.  Security  or  comfort,  bought  at  the  price  of  be- 
trayal, is  among  these  things.  Fortified  and  guarded 
by  this  assurance,  it  is  legitimate  for  us  to  recall  the  facts 
on  the  other  side.  There  is  indeed  some  soul  of  goodness 
in  things  evil,  and  even  in  war  there  are  redeeming 
powers.  It  is  for  us  to  see  clearly  where  these  redeeming 
powers  lie,  and  to  wrest  from  those  past  four  years 
some  gain  so  great  as  to  make  their  cost  worth  while. 
The  town  of  Ypres  had  much  red  brick  in  its  buildings, 
and  from  its  ruined  streets  many  hundreds  of  loads  of 
debris  were  taken  to  repair  the  great  road  that  runs  back- 
ward into  France.  The  road  is  red,  and  well  deserves 
the  terrible  name  that  was  given  to  one  part  of  it,  *'the 
bloody  mile."  Some  such  road  as  that  is  being  constructed 
in  history  to-day.  Built  of  the  wreckage  of  civilisation, 
reddened  with  the  blood  of  innumerable  brave  men,  it 
may  yet  lead  humanity  onward  till  it  passes  beneath  the 
gateway  of  the  city  of  God. 

The  first  thing  which  must  be  reckoned  among  the  gains 
of  the  war  is  discipline.  It  is  a  momentous  thing  that 
you  do  for  a  young  man  when  you  take  him  away  from 
his  office  or  university  or  workshop  and  make  a  soldier 
of  him.  In  his  former  employment  also  there  doubtless 
was  discipline  of  a  sort  but  it  only  affected  his  life  in 
parts.  For  the  rest,  he  was  free  to  manage  his  days  and 
arrange  their  dispositions  for  himself.  He  was,  in  many 
cases,  the  centre  of  a  circle  of  admiring  friends.  Among 
his  mates  he  counted  for  a  personahty  of  some  sort, 
who  had  at  least  a  known  history,  and  who  in  one  way 
or  another  must  be  reckoned  with.  To  his  mother  he  was 
the  most  wonderful  of  sons,  to  his  father  the  hope  of 
future  years.  Somewhere  in  the  background  there  was 
probably  some  girl  or  other  to  whom  he  was  the  one  man 
worthy  of  the  name,  par  excellence  le  preux  chevalier. 
To  his  younger  brothers  and  sisters  he  was  the  hero  to 

48 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

be  reverenced  almost  as  a  little  god.  Suddenly  he  woke 
up  one  morning  to  find  himself  none  of  these  things,  but 
only  No.  371458.  His  very  personality  had  vanished, 
with  all  that  made  it  interesting  or  impressive  either  to 
himself  or  others.  He  found  himself  but  a  detail,  micro- 
scopic in  value  or  importance,  in  the  vast  machine  of  the 
army. 

With  this  transformation,  a  great  simplicity  comes  upon 
life.  Of  all  his  possessions  he  can  retain  only  the  most 
necessary  and  central  things,  and  but  a  very  few  of  them. 
There  comes  also  an  irresponsibility  which  reduces  him 
to  a  veritable  second  childhood.  Everything  that  he  used 
to  do  for  himself  is  now  done  for  him  by  the  army.  It 
wakens  him,  bathes  him,  dresses  him,  feeds  him,  directs 
his  hours  of  work  and  play,  prescribing  alike  the  task 
and  the  game,  until  at  night  it  puts  him  to  bed  and  ex- 
tinguishes his  candle.  He  is  responsible  for  nothing  but 
to  do  what  he  is  told  to  do.  He,  who  used  to  take  himself 
and  his  responsibilities  so  seriously,  is  now  a  little  child 
lost  in  a  strange  land. 

And  what  a  land!  The  wicked  uncle  who  sent  forth 
the  babes  into  the  wild  wood  was  a  gentle  nurse  compared 
with  the  discipline  that  led  this  little  child  forth  to  Flan- 
ders or  to  France.  For  the  wood  is  like  nothing  else  in 
fact  or  fiction,  unless  it  be  Dante's  forest  of  suicides.  Of 
its  actual  horrors  much  has  been  written,  and  there  is  little 
need  to  add  to  a  tale  so  ghastly.  But  worse  than  all  that, 
in  its  actual  effect  on  the  wandered  child,  was  the  dreari- 
ness of  the  wandering.  For  war  is  no  gallant  adventure 
nowadays,  and  the  soldier  in  the  trenches  was  not  engaged 
in  a  perpetual  encounter  with  his  enemies.  He  was  a  man 
condemned  to  hard  labour  in  a  continent  of  mud.  Mud 
was  in  his  eyes,  mud  in  his  nose,  mud  in  his  mouth,  mud 
in  the  very  soul  of  him!  The  padre  who  has  preached 
at  the  front  will  remember  to  his  dying  day  the  expres- 
sion on  the  faces  of  those  singular  congregations  clad 

49 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

in  mud  and  steel.  For  sheer  unqualified  dreariness  it 
would  be  difficult  to  match  the  sound  of  rain  battering 
on  one's  helmet,  or  the  mixture  of  sleet  and  shrapnel. 
Strange,  and  yet  for  the  most  part  dull,  the  life  touched 
the  bottom  levels  of  discomfort,  until  the  homesick  lad 
was  numbed  beyond  the  power  of  thinking;  nor  did  he 
desire  to  be  awakened,  for,  in  his  own  expressive  words, 
"It  hurts  to  think.'* 

Fortunately,  in  such  an  hour,  thinking  was  not  de- 
manded of  him.  He  had  left  the  thinking  to  others,  and 
for  himself  he  accepted  the  discipline  and  with  it  fortified 
his  soul.  "There  is  a  splendid  dignity  about  the  life  of 
a  soldier,"  writes  a  great  contemporary  Frenchman.  "For 
him  the  path  of  duty  is  clearly  defined,  not  the  less  clearly 
because  reason  has  no  part  in  defining  it."^  Excavating 
recently  beside  the  Wall  of  Hadrian  which  runs  across 
the  North  of  England  from  the  Solway  to  the  Tyne,  they 
found  a  massive  altar,  and  eagerly  turned  to  read  the  in- 
scription which  Roman  chisels  had  cut  deep  into  its  stone. 
They  expected  a  dedication  to  the  gods  of  Rome,  of  war, 
or  of  the  land  whereon  it  had  been  erected,  but  they 
found  none  of  these.  Instead,  with  astonished  eyes  they 
deciphered  the  words,  "In  Disciplinam  Augustorum" 
— "To  the  discipline  of  the  Emperors."  Is  it  not  signifi- 
cant that  those  men,  to  whom  that  discipline  had  meant  so 
much  of  loss,  of  hardship,  exile,  and  danger,  had  yet  dis- 
covered its  sacredness,  and  could  think  of  no  higher 
power  to  which  they  might  raise  their  altar  ?  So,  to  many 
a  soldier  in  this  war  of  the  latter  days  there  came  the  dis- 
covery of  the  sacredness  of  discipline.  And  those  who 
discovered  that,  had  won  the  first  great  battle  of  the  war. 

The  second  consideration  which  has  to  be  noticed 
is  that  of  a  very  interesting  and  clearly-marked  readjust- 
ment of  the  standards  by  which  morality  is  measured,  and 
a  new  scale  of  values  in  sins  and  virtues,  involving  a  new 

1  Anatole  France,  My  Friend's  Book,  p.  72. 

50 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

emphasis  and  a  new  sense  of  proportion  in  the  evil  or  the 
good  of  each.  The  soldier  is  a  gentleman  in  khaki,  wan- 
dering in  foreign  lands,  physical,  moral,  and  spiritual,  and 
passing  through  profound  and  moving  experiences. 
There  are  two  ways  in  which  we  may  interpret  the  moral 
results  at  which  he  arrives.  They  may  be  regarded  as, 
from  first  to  last,  a  distortion  of  moral  judgments  brought 
about  by  extreme  and  abnormal  circumstances.  That  is  a 
comfortable  way  of  interpreting  them,  but  it  is  a  very 
superficial  way.  Abnormal  circumstances  may  sometimes 
lead  to  a  recovery  of  truth  from  propriety.  They  may 
have  led  the  soldiers  back  from  a  conventional  and  arti- 
ficial morality  to  something  truer  and  more  profound. 
The  change  of  emphasis  in  moral  questions  may  be  a  reve- 
lation of  what  men  have  blindly  felt  to  be  a  truer  system 
all  along,  although  in  times  of  peace  it  was  obscured 
by  the  conventions  of  society  or  the  unconsidered  accept- 
ance of  tradition.  For  my  part  I  cannot  but  believe  that  in 
many  instances  the  extreme  conditions  of  imminent  and 
perpetual  danger  quickened  men's  latent  instinct  and  com- 
mon sense,  and  brought  them  back  to  reality  from  an  un- 
convincing and  artificial  code.  This  was  the  task  to  which 
Christ  set  Himself  when  dealing  with  the  Pharisees. 
It  has  the  disadvantage  of  shocking  at  the  outset  those 
who  consider  themselves  ''all  right-thinking  persons."  It 
has  not  even  yet  shaken  the  all  but  impregnable  stupidity 
of  many  good  people.  But  in  spite  of  that  it  may  pos- 
sibly turn  out  to  be  a  juster  standard  than  theirs.  It  rests 
on  one  commanding  principle,  that  the  morality  or  im- 
morality of  conduct  should  be  judged  by  motives  rather 
than  by  acts,  and  that  "  'tis  not  what  man  Does  that  ex- 
alts him,  but  what  man  Would  do." 

This  might  be  illustrated  in  many  ways.  Take  the  in- 
stance of  profanity.  Tommy  swore  infernally — not  all 
of  him,  but  a  very  large  number.  It  is  certainly  a  very 
regrettable  fact,  but  to  its  severest  critics  one  is  inclined 

51 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

to  reply  that  if  they  were  in  his  circumstances  some  of 
them  would  swear  too.  Soldiers  have  only  the  plea  of 
pent-up  excitement  and  nerve  strung  to  breaking  point 
in  the  long  years  through  which  they  were  defending  the 
lives  of  their  critics.  That  is  certainly  an  explanation 
rather  than  an  excuse.  But  if  the  habit  be  judged  by  its 
motives,  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  was  singularly  free 
from  malice,  and  indeed  it  generally  meant  nothing  what- 
ever. Few  fair-minded  people  will  be  ready  to  condemn 
heavily  the  outbursts  which  may  be  let  loose  in  moments 
of  wild  and  deadly  action,  when  men  ''see  red."  When 
the  language  of  such  moments  is  taken  over  into  ordinary 
circumstances  and  becomes  part  of  the  vernacular  it  will 
disgust  good  taste  as  offensive ;  but  it  will"  appear  to  most 
people,  not  so  much  as  a  capital  offence  against  essential 
morality,  but  rather  as  a  lamentable  waste  of  strong 
language. 

As  to  the  Sabbath-breaking  of  which  we  hear  so  much, 
that  was  not  the  soldier's  blame  but  the  war's.  Everyone 
knows  how  in  such  a  war  as  this  it  is  often  impossible 
to  make  any  but  the  formal  distinctions  of  church  parade 
and  hut  service  from  the  routine  of  other  days.  This 
was  neither  a  Jewish  nor  a  Cromwellian  campaign,  in 
which  it  would  have  been  possible  by  mutual  consent  to 
respect  the  sanctity  of  the  day  of  rest.  I  have  known  an 
officer,  in  order  to  secure  the  services  of  a  preacher 
whose  message  he  desired  for  his  men,  to  hold  a  Monday 
as  a  Sunday,  and  fix  parades  and  routine  accordingly. 
Yet,  with  all  its  evil,  even  this  feature  of  the  war  was  not 
without  some  redeeming  elements.  While  it  stripped 
the  conception  of  Sunday  from  any  relics  of  superstition 
and  unreality  which  may  have  remained  attached  to  it 
in  the  popular  mind,  it  made  men  weary  of  the  unbroken 
strain  of  secular  life  and  awakened  in  many  of  them  a 
wistful  sense  of  the  value  of  rest  and  a  longing  after  holy 
things. 

52 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

We  have  heard  much  of  "grousing"  in  the  army,  and 
the  passing  visitor  has  sometimes  felt  it  to  be  an  ugly  and 
even  a  dangerous  feature  of  the  lines.  There  certainly 
were  professional  grumblers  there,  whose  presence  was 
always  the  signal  for  discontent  and  bad  feeling.  But  the 
prevailing  temper  everywhere  was  an  almost  miraculous 
cheerfulness,  even  in  the  midst  of  cheerless  and  depress- 
ing circumstances.  I  have  heard  officers  put  in  a  good 
word  for  the  grouser.  Grousing  is  but  another  form  of 
swearing,  in  which  very  frequently  the  man  does  not  mean 
what  he  says  to  be  taken  seriously,  but  is  only  seeking  re- 
lief from  the  heavy  strain.  In  contrast  with  the  too  easy- 
going, good-natured  man  who  accepts  any  conditions  with 
a  smile  and  does  not  seek  to  mend  them,  the  practised 
officer  will  say,  "Give  me  the  good  old  grouser,  who  tells 
you  what  he  thinks  of  you  and  of  the  universe  in  many 
hard  sayings,  but  is  mending  sandbags  all  the  time/^ 

The  question  of  sex-morality  and  venereal  disease  is 
far  too  large  to  be  entered  on  here,  but  two  things  may 
be  confidently  affirmed.  First,  the  actual  statistics  do  not 
justify  all  of  the  sweeping  and  appalling  statements  made 
loosely  by  some  earnest  speakers  and  writers  on  the  sub- 
ject. Second,  it  has  been  proved  beyond  all  question  that 
the  average  soldier  is  not  in  this  respect  any  more  than  in 
other  respects  a  beast,  but  a  gentleman  with  very  chival- 
rous instincts  of  honour  and  reverence  for  women.  When 
our  Women's  Army  Auxiliary  Corps  was  first  put  into 
uniform  and  sent  out  to  France,  the  experiment  was  re- 
garded by  many  as  a  perilously  daring  one.  Suspicions 
and  prophecies  of  evil  grew  into  rumours  and  accusations. 
These  were  met  by  an  exhaustive  investigation,  which  re- 
sulted in  one  of  the  most  complete  vindications  on  record. 
The  women  of  that  corps,  together  with  the  women 
workers  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  huts  and  Red  Cross  services 
in  France,  have  solved  a  very  interesting  and  vital  prob- 
lem.   They  have  proved  conclusively  that  the  real  desire 

53 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

and  craving  of  the  vast  majority  of  soldiers  in  the  field 
is  simply  for  the  home  touch  and  atmosphere  which  are 
given  by  the  presence  of  good  and  friendly  women. 
When  such  women  are  absent  the  craving  will  take  a 
lower  form,  whose  gratification  every  base  offers  to  war- 
weary  men  in  the  form  of  terrible  temptation.  The  causes 
which  give  such  temptations  their  power  are  not  difficult 
to  discover.  Besides  animal  lust,  strengthened  by  rough 
life  in  the  open  air,  with  its  consequent  full-blooded  physi- 
cal health,  there  are  loneliness,  "fed-up-ness,"  the  desire 
for  a  lark,  and  above  all  curiosity.  But  the  real  need 
which  such  gratifications  profess  to  satisfy  is  not  es- 
sentially the  vicious  one  they  cater  for.  It  is  a  cry  for 
gentleness  and  sympathy,  made  passionate  by  the  sav- 
agery and  discomfort  of  their  lives;  and  in  the  home 
pieties  expressed  in  their  response  to  every  mention  of 
mothers,  wives,  and  children,  one  found  what  their  deep- 
est desires  really  were. 

It  has  often  been  lamented  that  the  dreadful  deeds 
which  have  to  be  performed  in  such  actions  as  a  bayonet 
charge  or  a  bombing  raid  upon  enemy  trenches  must 
permanently  brutalise  those  who  have  to  do  them.  This, 
however,  is  not  the  report  of  those  who  know  the  men. 
Some  of  the  grimmest  work  of  all  the  war  was  done  by  a 
certain  regiment  at  the  time  when  I  happened  to  be  with 
them.  I  met  a  captain  fresh  from  the  trenches  into 
which  he  had  led  some  twenty  men.  They  had  lost  two 
of  their  number,  but  they  had  killed  a  hundred  of  the 
enemy.  Those  same  soldiers,  finding  that  the  local  school 
was  closed,  its  teachers  having  all  been  drafted  into  the 
French  army,  set  apart  four  of  their  number  to  take  the 
places  of  the  teachers,  and  reopened  the  school.  At 
Christmas-time  the  officers  subscribed  ilOO,  sent  a  trans- 
port wagon  down  to  Paris  for  a  Christmas  tree  and  toys, 
and  gave  the  children  such  a  Christmas  treat  as  they  had 
never  dreamed  of  in  their  lives.    The  brutalising  of  men 

54 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

in  such  circumstances  as  theirs  is  a  priori  not  only  prob- 
able but  apparently  inevitable.  The  fact  that  it  occurred 
only  to  so  small  an  extent  has  brought  to  light  one  of  the 
most  striking  of  ethical  phenomena.  The  man  who  for 
his  own  selfish  ends — for  private  greed  or  hate — should 
commit  even  one  such  act  as  theirs,  would  certainly  de- 
grade and  permanently  brutalise  his  soul.  They,  doing  it 
under  the  fierce  compulsion  of  a  sense  of  duty,  suffered 
no  such  deterioration.  They  may  "see  red"  in  the  fiery 
moment,  but  when  they  come  back,  its  effect  upon  their 
spirit  falls  off  from  them  like  a  bloodstained  cloak,  and 
they  return  to  their  homes  fresh,  clean,  and  light-hearted 
as  they  left  them.  It  seems  to  be  the  motive  and  not  the 
deed  that  counts  in  permanent  moral  consequence — a 
principle  which  has  probably  never  had  such  vivid  illus- 
tration in  the  history  of  the  world  before.  There  is  a 
capacity  for  resilience  in  human  nature  far  beyond  any- 
thing which  moralists  have  generally  understood ;  and  that 
fact  is  one  of  the  most  important  psychological  discoveries 
of  the  war. 

Taken  all  round,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  both  the  sins 
and  the  virtues  of  fighting  men  are  simple  and  indeed 
primitive.  As  we  have  already  noticed,  the  first  effect 
of  army  discipline  upon  a  man  is  to  bring  him  back  into 
a  pathetic  sort  of  childhood.  Vices  he  has  in  abundance, 
but  they  are  what  may  be  called  natural  vices,  bedrock 
and  elemental  tendencies  let  loose,  the  sins  of  children. 
The  vices  of  peace  are  otherwise.  A  complicated  civilisa- 
tion, with  its  veneer  of  respectability  and  its  enforced 
proprieties,  tends  to  engender  sly  and  secret  vices — the 
meannesses  that  embitter  home  life,  and  the  trickeries  that 
degrade  commerce.  The  soldier's  vices  are  at  least  frank 
and  passionate.  Probably  there  is  far  less  guilt  in  them 
than  in  the  calculated  nastiness  of  much  civilian  life  that 
passes  for  respectability.     In  the  Great  Judgment  if  I 

55 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

had  to  choose  between  the  two,  I  would  unhesitatingly 
take  my  chance  with  the  soldier. 

Of  the  miraculous  morality,  the  amazing  triumph  of 
character,  which  the  war  has  revealed,  we  can  only  at- 
tempt to  give  some  faint  idea.  It  is  often  asserted  that 
when  the  boys  come  home  they  go  the  pace,  and  run  riot 
in  a  fashion  that  disproves  the  impressions  of  their  good- 
ness which  some  of  us  have  felt  so  deep  and  strong  when 
we  w^ere  among  them  in  the  field.  No  one  need  wonder 
if  this  should  be  so.  The  reaction  from  so  dire  a  strain 
may  very  likely  be  violent  for  a  time.  It  must  be  al- 
lowed that  the  actual  experience  of  demobilisation  has  not 
confirmed  such  anticipations  to  any  considerable  degree. 
Yet  if  there  should  be  such  instances  of  wildness,  let  us 
judge  them  justly  and  not  make  too  much  of  them.  All 
things  suddenly  relaxed  tend  to  go  beyond  the  golden 
mean  in  the  opposite  direction.  But  such  excess  is  not 
the  normal  or  permanent  condition  of  the  man  that  is  to 
be.  During  the  storm  and  earthquake'  of  war,  when  all 
moralities  appear  to  tumble  in  ruins,  and  "the  earth  is  re- 
moved and  the  mountains  are  carried  into  the  midst  of 
the  sea,"  still  "there  is  a  river  the  streams  whereof  make 
glad  the  city  of  God."  Deep-hidden,  silent,  yet  unceas- 
ing, that  river  of  goodness  flows  on  eternally  in  the  hearts 
of  men.  When  they  prepare  themselves  for  the  future, 
and  set  themselves  to  "strengthen  the  things  that  re- 
main," they  will  find  large  supplies  of  material  ready  to 
their  hand. 

On  the  positive  side,  there  are  three  main  things  which 
may  be  taken  as  characteristic  in  any  attempt  to  estimate 
the  ethical  situation.  These  are  Reserve  forces  of  char- 
acter. Idealism,  and  Mysticism. 

1.  Reserve  forces  of  character.  This  is  a  subject  which 
must  be  handled  with  caution  when  one  is  speaking  to  the 
men  themselves.  They  are,  as  a  rule,  shy  of  hearing 
about  their  own  virtues,  as  the  following  extract  from  a 

56 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

letter  may  help  to  prove:  "The  reason  I  dislike  civilian 
churches  is  that  the  one  topic  is  Us,  our  virtues,  etc." 
One  can  easily  understand  the  point  of  view.  Any 
healthy-minded  young  man  feels  uncomfortable  when  he 
is  being  fitted  with  a  halo.  Rudyard  Kipling's  lines 
against  the  "thin  red  line'*  kind  of  talk  could  not  be  more 
exactly  expressive: 

"We  aren't  no  thin  red  'eroes,  but  we  aren't  no  blackguards  too, 
But  single  men  in  barricks,  most  remarkable  like  you."^ 

In  this  connection  one  remembers  that  the  people  to  whom 
Christ  says,  "Come,  ye  blessed  of  My  Father,"  will  always 
be  apt  to  reply,  "Lord,  when  saw  we  Thee  an  hungered 
and  fed  Thee?" 

Before  the  war,  the  decadence  of  England  was  a 
favourite  theme  of  English  preaching  and  writing.  It 
had  come  to  be  the  recognised  thing  for  earnest  persons 
to  glorify  the  hardihood  of  past  generations  as  an  offset 
to  the  pleasure-loving  softness,  luxuriousness,  and  self- 
indulgence  of  the  present  generation.  There  was  more  in 
this  than  the  whine  of  the  laudator  temp  oris  acti,  for  to  a 
certain  extent  it  was  true.  It  confirmed  the  Germans  in 
their  belief  that  ours  was  a  degenerate  race,  and  that  they 
could  afford  to  despise  us  as  enemies  in  the  field.  But 
they  got  a  rude  awakening,  and  one  which  astonished 
them  no  less  than  it  astonished  the  earnest  persons  afore- 
said among  ourselves,  and  even  the  very  men  whom  both 
alike  had  been  pronouncing  degenerate. 

For  those  victims  of  self-indulgence,  set  down  suddenly 
on  the  bottom  level  of  physical  discomfort,  were  cheerful. 
The  trenches  were  ever  ready  for  a  jest,  and  the  dugouts 
often  rang  with  laughter.  This  cheerfulness  has  been 
misunderstood  and  caricatured.  The  soldier  was  by  no 
means  the  grinning  idiot  who  was  for  ever  cultivating  a 
preposterous  smile,  nor  was  his  cheerfulness  a  matter  that 

1  Barrack-Room  Ballads,  p.  8. 

57 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

could  be  explained  away  with  a  smart  epigram.  His  face 
was  set  when  things  were  dangerous,  and  an  air  of  gravity 
pervaded  the  lines.  But  he  was  at  all  times — even  in  the 
hour  of  extreme  danger — ready  for  the  relief  of  laughter, 
and  very  grateful  for  it.  A  thousand  times  the  old 
Scottish  verse  kept  repeating  itself  to  me : 

"Werena  my  heart  licht  I  wad  dee." 

Four  years  of  trench-life  means  endurance  beyond  all 
possible  imagination,  and  they  endured  unto  the  end. 
There  was  no  help  to  be  gained  from  looking  upon  the 
dark  side  of  things,  beyond  the  very  real  comfort  of  an 
occasional  fit  of  grousing.  But  even  the  grouser  was 
ready  for  a  laugh  upon  the  smallest  provocation,  and  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  cheerfulness  was  a  virtue  as  well  as 
an  assuagement.  They  did  without  everything  which 
they  had  been  supposed  to  live  for,  and  smiled.  To  those 
who  saw  and  lived  among  them,  the  impression  they  gave 
was  of  a  secret  spring  of  cheerfulness,  hidden  it  may  be 
even  from  themselves,  which,  in  the  hour  of  their  need 
for  it,  they  had  discovered  and  tapped. 

Their  courage  was  so  marvellous  that  the  tale  of  it  will 
be  told  with  reverence  and  astonishment  for  many  gener- 
ations. There  is  no  need  to  recount  any  of  the  countless 
stories  which  are  the  common  knowledge  of  everyone. 
The  only  fear  we  ever  saw  at  the  front  was  the  fear  of 
fear  itself.  Men  trembled  lest  in  the  hour  of  trial  they 
might  flinch  and  find  themeslves  unable  to  carry  through 
the  brave  adventure  in  which  their  whole  hearts  were 
enlisted.  Sometimes  at  first  they  were  paralysed  beyond 
the  power  of  action,  but  such  shrinking  was  but  for  a 
moment.  A  tale  is  told  of  one  lad,  which  is  typical  of  the 
experience  of  many.  He  was  a  mere  boy,  and  the  long 
interval  between  the  order  to  go  over  the  parapet  and  the 
chill  hour  of  early  morning  when  it  had  to  be  obeyed  was 
too  much   for  him.     When  the  company  had  left  the 

58 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

trench  for  No  Man's  Land,  the  rounding-up  officer  found 
him,  a  bundle  of  jangled  nerves,  lying  in  the  mud  of  the 
fire-step.  Being  a  man  big  alike  in  body  and  in  spirit,  the 
officer  did  not  report  the  boy,  but,  seizing  him  by  the  slack 
of  the  trousers,  lifted  him  bodily  over  the  parapet  and  set 
him  down  in  the  open.  No  more  was  heard  of  him  at 
the  time,  but  some  nights  afterwards  the  trench  was 
astonished  by  the  sound  of  bombs  in  front.  It  turned  out 
that  that  same  boy  had  gone  out  alone,  his  pockets  filled 
with  bombs,  had  hidden  in  a  shell-hole,  and  then  had 
started  to  bomb  the  German  trenches  all  on  his  own 
account.  Such  experiences  were  not  uncommon.  But 
the  most  wonderful  thing  of  all  was  the  courage  in  cold 
blood,  when,  under  no  excitement  of  a  charge  and  blinded 
by  no  illusions,  men  with  open  eyes  faced  unimaginable 
and  incessant  dangers.  These  men  were  not  cowards  in 
civilian  life,  but  the  majority  of  them  were  by  no  means 
regarded  either  by  themselves  or  others  as  conspicuously 
brave.  The  time  of  action  revealed  reserves  of  daring 
that  neither  they  nor  any  one  else  had  guessed  in  them 
before. 

The  sense  of  honour,  and  the  unwritten  and  unwritable 
law  that  a  man  must  play  the  game,  were  everywhere 
apparent.  The  pure  and  untarnished  sportsmanship  with 
which  they  went  out  to  the  war  was  certainly  one  of  their 
most  characteristic  qualities.  It  has  been  said  of  England 
that  her  battles  were  won  on  the  playing  fields  of  her 
public  schools,  and  in  respect  of  the  point  of  honour  the 
saying  is  true.  It  is  indeed  unfortunately  the  case  that 
these  sentiments  were  not  cherished  by  our  enemy  in  this 
war.  He  openly  sneered  at  them  as  signs  of  folly,  and 
he  violated  every  code  of  honour  which  had  ever  been 
held  sacred  by  fighting  men.  The  inevitable  result  was 
that  it  became  necessary  to  meet  him  on  his  own  terms  in 
order  to  save  precious  and  only  too  gallant  lives.  At  first 
the  aircraft  service  was  an  exception,  and  many  fine 

59 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

stories  are  told  of  either  side  crossing  the  Hnes  unharmed 
to  drop  a  wreath  upon  the  grave  of  a  fallen  enemy. 
Latterly  even  in  that  service  all  laws  of  chivalry  came  to 
be  disregarded.  Yet  the  fact  remains  that  Allied  soldiers, 
when  put  to  the  supreme  test,  went  out  to  fight  in  a  spirit 
infinitely  more  chivalrous,  and  with  a  sense  of  honour 
more  exalted,  than  the  spirit  of  average  civilian  life.  In 
two  of  his  most  familiar  lines  Rupert  Brooke  records 
this: 

"Honour  has  come  back,  as  a  king,  to  earth,  .   .   . 
And  we  have  come  into  our  heritage." 

They  had  lived  before  very,  much  as  other  men  live,  and 
had  had  little  in  their  lives  that  called  out  any  picturesque 
or  romantic  chivalry.  But  they  carried  their  honour  like 
a  sword  into  battle  clean  and  bright,  and  consented  to  no 
shameful  thing  unfit  to  take  back  with  them  to  their 
mother's  eyes,  or  forward  into  the  mysteries  of  the  land 
beyond  the  grave. 

The  crowning  virtue  discovered  by  the  war  was  the 
men's  unselfishness.  For  this,  in  ordinary  life,  many  of 
them  had  doubtless  been  anything  but  conspicuous:  in 
France,  it  was  the  daily  and  hourly  principle  of  their  lives. 
I  have  known  a  wounded  man  to  stay  for  two  days  in  a 
flooded  trench  that  he  might  hold  up  the  head  of  a  com- 
rade mortally  wounded  and  save  him  from  drowning.  I 
have  waited  for  hours  attempting  to  relieve  the  suffering 
of  a  wounded  lad  in  a  tent,  until  at  last  the  ambulance 
arrived.  When  I  tried  to  lift  and  help  him  to  the  wagon, 
he  absolutely  refused  to  enter  it  until  the  man  who  had 
been  lying  next  him  in  the  tent  was  safely  lifted  in.  At 
the  front  such  stories  hardly  excited  any  interest.  They 
were  daily  occurrences,  the  only  thing  a  fellow  ever 
thought  of  doing. 

2.  Idealism.  All  this  astonishing  discovery  and  de- 
velopment of  reserves  of  character  is  not  unconnected 
with   a   second   factor   in  the   case,   idealism.      Nothing 

60 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

strikes  a  British  visitor  to  the  States  more  than  the  frank 
and  unashamed  profession  of  idealism  in  American  men 
and  women.  You  hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star,  and  you 
tell  us  the  star's  name.  Whether  we  have  ideals  or  not, 
we  carefully  pretend  that  we  have  none.  John  Morley 
told  us  long  ago  that  "we  execute  noble  achievements,  and 
then  are  best  pleased  to  find  shabby  reasons  for  them."^ 
Of  the  majority  of  our  soldiers  before  the  war,  it  may 
safely  be  asserted  that  they  did  not  think  much  in  terms 
of  ideals.  They  lived  their  lives,  with  the  usual  mixture 
of  good  and  bad  in  them,  but  they  did  little  searching  after 
the  reasons  of  conduct.  When  war  broke  out,  a  great 
wave  of  conscious  idealism  swept  across  the  land.  In  this 
action  of  their  lives  at  least,  they  knew  why  they  acted  as 
they  did.  They  had  certain  quite  definite  objects  for 
which  they  were  prepared  to  fight  and  if  need  be  to  die. 
Their  enlisting  was  perhaps  the  most  intelligent  thing 
they  ever  did.  For  them  it  was  a  war  of  principles  and 
not  a  war  of  nations.  Indian  Civil  Service  men,  assured 
of  careers  of  opulence  and  honour,  professional  and  com- 
mercial men  just  entering  into  their  heritage  of  high 
worldly  success,  flung  all  away  and  dedicated  themselves 
to  the  cause  of  ideals  which  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
they  knew  to  be  the  deepest  convictions  of  their  con- 
sciences and  the  dearest  treasures  of  their  souls.  Some 
of  them  indeed  could  not  have  defined  those  ideals  in 
detail.  All  they  could  have  said  was  that  the  call  to 
arms  had  appealed  to  the  best  that  was  in  them,  and  that 
they  were  fighting  for  the  highest  that  they  knew.  Others 
defined  them  very  clearly  indeed,  in  one  or  other  of  the 
forms  which  we  shall  presently  enumerate.  But  what  was 
common  to  them  all  (and  more  than  anything  else  it  was 
this  that  forged  the  bonds  of  sympathy  between  your 
soldiers  and  ours)  was  that  they  were  consciously  dedi- 
cated to  ideal  ends.  It  was  not  for  fun,  or  the  love  of 
1  On  Compromise,  ch.  i. 

61 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

fighting,  or  the  call  of  adventure,  that  the  vast  majority 
of  our  boys  went  out.  Still  less  was  it  for  any  worldly 
gain  or  ambition.  One  of  them,  whose  life  had  few  prizes 
in  it,  pathetically  described  the  situation:  "There's  not 
much  to  live  for,  but  there's  plenty  to  die  for,  so  that's 
all  right."  In  a  very  real  sense  it  was  the  sudden  spiritual- 
ising of  the  youth  of  the  nations. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  course  of  years  this  high  ideahsm 
of  the  early  days  died  down  in  many  cases.  A  visitor 
might  easily  gather  the  impression  of  men  doggedly  fight- 
ing on,  mechanically,  and  with  little  or  no  remembrance 
of  the  reasons  for  which  at  first  they  had  come  out.  That 
was  inevitable  under  the  dreary  conditions.  Men  grew 
afraid  of  high  thoughts,  afraid  of  happy  memories.  "I've 
got  some  ideals  about  me,"  one  of  your  countrymen  said 
once  to  me,  "and  ideals  are  pretty  lonesome  things."  But, 
under  all  the  passionless  and  spiritually  comatose  appear- 
ance, one  found  the  slumbering  fires  unquenched.  One 
Christmas  Day  in  a  cellar  at  Ypres  I  stood  in  a  crowd  of 
khaki  Hstening  to  a  sad-faced  boy  who  sang,  "Carry  me 
back  to  Blighty."  I  asked  the  men  around  me,  "Do  you 
fellows  want  very  badly  to  go  back  to  Blighty?"  and  the 
answer  came  with  an  emphasis  that  shook  me,  "My  God !" 
"And  would  you  go  if  you  got  the  chance  ?"  Immediate 
and  unhesitating  came  the  reply,  "Not  till  we've  finished 
the  job."  It  needed  but  a  reminder  of  the  things  that 
brought  them  out,  and  dull  eyes  flashed  and  burdened 
spirits  wakened  to  the  old  enthusiasm. 

Three  ideals  above  all  others  were  their  reasons  for 
going  to  the  war.  Love  was  one — the  love  for  women  and 
children.  When  the  news  came  of  the  Belgian  atrocities, 
they  enlisted  in  tens  of  thousands.  Anger  was  in  their 
hearts,  a  great  hot  anger,  but  it  was  the  anger  not  of  petty 
hatreds  but  of  love.  There  was  little  rancour  against  the 
German  people,  and  still  less  against  the  individual  man 
in  the  German  trenches,  except  when  he  was  detected  in 

62 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

some  brutality.    Browning  has  written  great  words  about 

"Dante,  who  loved  well  because  he  hated, 
Hated  wickedness  that  hinders  loving."^ 

Such  was  the  anger  of  love  that  sent  men  forth  from  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  to  put  an  end  for  ever  to  the  spirit 
which  threatened  homes  and  abused  women  and  children. 

Freedom  and  love  of  country  was  another  of  the  central 
ideals.  The  cause  of  democracy  and  the  passion  of 
patriotism  blazed  into  clear  flame  when  they  were  threat- 
ened. Men  who  had  given  little  thought  to  either,  dis- 
covered how  they  loved  them  when  they  saw  the  only 
enemies  of  freedom  left  in  any  civilised  portion  of  the 
earth,  massed  as  in  a  single  fortress,  to  stamp  out  the 
liberties  not  of  a  single  nation  but  of  the  world.  The  fol- 
lowing extract  from  a  young  American's  letter  to  his 
father  is  typical  of  the  sentiments  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands: 'The  point  is  this,  our  nation  is  on  the  verge  of 
war,  and  it  behooves  every  red-blooded  young  American 
to  do  his  utmost  for  his  country.  If  I  were  not  one  of  the 
first  to  volunteer  for  service,  I  would  always  be  ashamed 
of  myself.  I  cannot  explain  it,  father,  but  nowadays 
when  I  pass  by  a  building,  and  the  Stars  and  Stripes  is 
flapping  out  in  front,  I  feel  a  big  lump  come  up  in  my 
throat,  and  I  would  consider  it  an  honour  to  die  for  that 
flag.  I  have  just  got  to  get  into  this,  and  cannot  keep 
out."  Nor  did  the  soldier  think  only  of  his  own  land. 
In  all  the  Allied  armies  there  were  not  a  few  who  were 
big  enough  and  wise  enough  to  perceive  that  the  most 
pitiable  victim  of  Prussianism  was  Germany  herself,  and 
who  were  consciously  and  deliberately  fighting  for  her 
liberation. 

Not  less  than  these,  and  increasing  in  intensity  towards 
the  close  of  the  war,  was  the  ideal  of  peace.  As  they  saw 
the  fact  of  war  in  all  its  illimitable  insanity  and  outrage, 
and  as  they  "realised  that  this  thing,  if  it  were  not  ended, 

^  One  Word  More. 

63 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

must  spread  into  the  future,  they  vowed  in  their  secret 
hearts  that  it  must  end  before  their  children  were  slaugh- 
tered on  its  altars.  For  themselves,  they  sacrificed  their 
own  chance  of  peace  that  they  might  win  it  for  the  world. 
And  they  saw  more  and  more  clearly,  as  the  war  went  on 
its  bloody  way,  that  for  this  end  any  sacrifice  were  well 
worth  while. 

Home,  Freedom,  and  Peace — these  ideals,  clearly  per- 
ceived and  deliberately  adopted  and  professed,  revealed 
to  many  an  ordinary  lad  his  native  capacity  for  idealism. 
War  is  either  idealism  or  savagery,  either  Calvary  or  hell. 
This  war,  as  Sir  Douglas  Haig  has  all  along  maintained, 
is  essentially  a  war  of  the  spirit.  Those  who  have  died  in 
it  have  literally  died  for  the  world.  If  any  cause  in 
human  history  was  worth  dying  for,  it  was  this;  and  no 
sacrifice  has  been  lost  in  it,  no  life  given  in  vain.  The 
task  of  the  future  must  be  to  preserve  in  peace  the  ideal- 
ism which  the  war  evoked — to  find  some  moral  equivalent 
for  war  which  will  draw  out  in  like  manner  the  latent 
heroism  that  is  in  men,  and  to  transform  their  unconscious 
or  subconscious  ideals  into  a  blazing  passion  for  definite 
righteous  ends. 

3.  Mysticism.  This  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  times 
of  stress  and  strain,  especially  if  they  be  prolonged.  It 
has  appeared  in  the  records  of  great  plagues,  persecutions, 
and  other  kinds  of  national  calamity.  The  war  has  had 
its  full  share  of  it.  The  mystic  or  visionary  phenomena 
have  been  of  several  dififerent  kinds.  Spiritualism  has 
gained  widespread  popularity  of  late,  but  it  has  been 
mostly  in  the  civilian  population,  and,  as  was  natural, 
chiefly  among  the  bereaved.  At  the  front  it  was  aston- 
ishingly rare.  One  would  have  imagined  that  men  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides  by  the  buried  or  unburied  dead  would 
have  been  peculiarly  liable  to  this  form  of  search  for 
communion  with  their  spirits,  but  it  was  not  so.  At  least 
that  was  my  own  impression,  for  I  only  met  it  in  one  or 

64 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

two  instances,  and  others  have  confirmed  the  impression 
from  their  own  experience. 

On  the  other  hand,  everyone  must  have  noticed  the 
popularity  of  ritual,  and  especially  of  sacraments,  among 
men  who  had  not  previously  felt  any  particular  need  or 
inclination  for  these  ways  of  worship.  No  one  who  has 
attended  Holy  Communion  at  the  front,  where  little  com- 
panies gathered  to  receive  the  bread  and  wine,  will  ever 
forget  how  singularly  appropriate  and  natural  it  seemed. 
Certain  words  from  the  Litany  and  the  Communion  Serv- 
ice acquired  a  new  expressiveness  there:  "By  thine 
Agony  and  bloody  Sweat ;  by  thy  Cross  and  Passion ;  by 
thy  precious  Death  and  Burial,  Good  Lord,  deliver  us." 
"Lamb  of  God,  Son  of  the  Father,  that  takest  away  the 
sins  of  the  world,  have  mercy  upon  us.  Thou  that  takest 
away  the  sins  of  the  world,  receive  our  prayer."  For 
some  of  us  these  words  have  for  ever  consecrated  the 
poor  shell-broken  ruins  of  peasants'  homes  where  we 
heard  and  joined  in  them.  They  seemed  to  express  a 
certain  sacramental  and  sacrificial  quality  which  had  come 
upon  the  whole  life  of  the  trenches,  and  which  was  felt 
as  a  mystical  experience  by  many  of  the  finer  spirits  there. 

But  that  sense  of  the  mystical  was  not  confined  to  such 
spirits.  Many  a  young  man  saw  visions  then,  who  was 
by  no  means  a  visionary  in  ordinary  times.  In  every 
concert  it  was  noticed  that  the  more  sentimental  a  song 
or  hymn  was,  the  more  popular  it  was.  An  extraordinary 
amount  of  verse  was  written  in  the  trenches,  much  of  it 
by  lads  who  appeared  to  be  quite  unimaginative,  and  who 
had  certainly  never  written  verses  before.  Some  of  it 
was  poor  enough  from  the  literary  point  of  view;  some 
was  excellent  poetry.  But  the  interesting  thing  was  that 
it  was  produced,  as  by  a  natural  and  irresistible  impulse. 

Of  a  more  pronounced  type  were  the  legends  which  ran 
along  the  front  like  fire.  The  Angels  of  Mons,  the 
White    Christ,    and   others,   were    familiar   everywhere. 

65 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

Some  of  these  are  known  to  be  purely  fictitious  in  their 
origin,  and  yet  as  time  went  on  men  were  found  who  were 
prepared  to  swear,  obviously  in  perfect  sincerity,  that 
they  had  seen  those  supernatural  appearances  with  their 
own  eyes.  Many  strange  tales  were  told  with  the  utmost 
conviction.  One  boy  told  me  how  he  had  been  in  a  sweat 
of  cold  fear  when  the  command  came  to  go  over  the 
parapet  for  a  bayonet  charge,  but  Christ  came  to  him  and 
said,  "Keep  smiling:  as  long  as  you  smile  you're  safe." 
The  fear  vanished,  and  through  all  the  ghastly  business 
that  followed,  the  tight-drawn  smile  never  left  his  face. 
Another  related  how  he  had  lain  wounded  in  a  shell-hole 
for  thirty-six  hours,  and  was  growing  desperate,  when 
on  the  edge  of  the  shell-hole  he  saw  Jesus  standing,  clad 
in  white.  On  this  occasion  the  language  was  not  in  the 
vernacular,  but  was  in  some  sort  modelled  upon  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Bible :  "Suffer  it  for  this  night  only ;  help 
cometh  in  the  morning."  "So,"  he  went  on  to  say,  'T  lay 
down  in  the  mud  and  fell  asleep ;  and  the  next  thing  I 
knew  was  when  I  was  wakened  by  the  stretcher-bearers 
come  to  carry  me  back.  You  see  He  kept  His  word."  A 
third  man,  dying  in  a  hospital,  in  his  delirium  had  ex- 
hausted himself  with  a  flood  of  wild  profanity.  He  fell 
back  on  the  pillow  with  closed  eyes  for  a  little  time.  Then 
the  eyes  opened,  turned  towards  a  corner  of  the  ward, 
and  assumed  an  expression  of  extreme  surprise  and 
delight.  The  whole  face  changed  to  a  kind  of  rapturous 
welcome.  He  shouted  "Jesus !  Jesus !"  and  fell  back 
dead. 

Much  has  been  said  in  depreciation  of  mysticism. 
Vaughan's  attitude  to  it  is  common  among  those  who  lay 
great  stress  upon  the  probability  of  delusion  and  the  fre- 
quently defective  critical  evidence.  Ritschl  discounts  it 
with  unqualified  aversion  in  defence  of  his  insistence  on 
the  connection  of  experience  with  the  historical  facts  of 
the  life  of  Christ.    Yet  strange  things  happen  to  human 

66 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

nature  when  it  is  put  upon  the  rack  of  danger  or  of  pain. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  high  tension  naturally  pro- 
duces visions  by  purely  material  processes  in  the  brain. 
Doubtless  tension  may  be  the  occasion  of  vision  in  highly 
strung  or  sentimental  natures.  It  is  certainly  true  that 
in  many  cases,  stfch  as  some  of  those  above  narrated,  the 
precise  form  of  the  vision  and  the  words  which  accom- 
pany it  may  be  determined  by  early  training  or  other  such 
causes.  It  may  even  be  allowed  that  the  visionary  records 
of  the  war  have  more  value  for  psychology  than  for  reli- 
gion. Yet  there  is  room  for  another  explanation.  If  we 
hesitate  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  untrustworthiness  of 
reason  as  an  ultimate  guide  to  truth,  as  that  doctrine  is 
expounded  by  recent  able  writers,  yet  we  need  not  ques- 
tion their  contention  that  actual  truth  may  be  attained  by 
other  processes  than  reasoning.  In  his  Education  of 
Christ,^  Professor  Ramsay  gives  some  striking  instances 
of  the  sudden  revelation  to  ordinary  men  of  a  mystical 
world  which  opens  itself  to  them  unsought.  What  if,  as 
Professor  William  James  has  reminded  us,^  the  organism 
of  the  brain  in  normal  circumstances  conceals  from  us  a 
real  world  of  spiritual  phenomena;  but  becomes  as  it 
were  transparent,  when  attenuated  by  violent  excite- 
ments? Then,  with  a  finer  and  less  opaque  instrument, 
we  may  be  able  to  perceive  things  ordinarily  concealed. 
There  is  no  need  to  make  much  of  the  form  of  the  vision 
or  the  language  in  which  it  speaks.  That  may,  as  has 
been  already  suggested,  be  but  the  natural  way  in  which 
the  individual  clothes  it.  It  is  the  vision  itself  that 
matters,  the  sense  of  a  presence  beside  one,  and  a  world 
to  which  such  presences  belong.  There  will  always  be  a 
place  and  a  necessity  for  the  mystical  point  of  view.  So 
long  as  human  nature  remains,  there  will  be  those  to 
whom  this  will  be  the  most  convincing  way  of  receiving 
truth.    But  however  this  may  be,  it  will  certainly  remain 

1  Prologue.  2  Human  Immortality. 

67 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

true  that  in  the  Great  War  multitudes  of  men  whose 
former  Hves  had  been  articulate  without  the  Church,  or 
the  supernatural  faith  it  teaches,  did  know  that  the  curtain 
had  swung  back,  and  eternity  had  claimed  them  for  its 
own. 

In  this  lecture  we  have  described  some  general  concep- 
tions of  morals  and  religion  which  have  been  revealed 
by  the  war.  Next  lecture  will  be  devoted  to  a  more  par- 
ticular analysis  of  the  religious  convictions  which  it  has 
revealed  or  induced.  But  we  have  already  encountered 
much  that  may  throw  light  on  the  meaning  of  that  plea 
for  reality  in  preaching  which  we  considered  in  the  first 
lecture.  It  was  then  asserted  that  the  secret  of  reality  in 
preaching  is  intelligibility,  and  the  secret  of  intelligibility 
is  interest — i.e.  that  which  is  common  to  the  preacher  and 
those  to  whom  he  preaches.  If  we  have  been  hypnotised 
by  words  and  blind  to  facts,  we  must  learn  a  new  language 
and  speak  to  men  in  the  common  tongue.  We  must  regain 
what  Ruskin  calls  "the  virginity  of  the  eye,"  and  see 
things  as  they  are,  looking  down  upon  the  bedrock  human 
nature. 

This,  then,  which  I  have  tried  to  describe  to-day,  is 
part  of  what  we  shall  see  and  have  to  reckon  with.  Apart 
from  anything  which  must  be  considered  in  the  next 
lecture,  what  a  wealth  of  human  experience  we  have 
already  found!  The  trenches  are  great  schools  of  psy- 
chology. Among  all  the  educative  influences  of  my  life, 
I  put  two  before  all  others.  The  first  was  the  silence  of 
the  Australian  Bush,  where  long  ago  I  lived  among  the 
station  hands.  The  second  was  the  roar  of  the  guns  in 
France  and  Flanders,  where  I  lived  among  the  working- 
men  of  Britain.  In  these,  under  the  very  shadow  of 
eternity,  I  saw  deep  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and  this  is 
what  I  found  them  to  be.  Such  a  discovery  is  a  matter 
of  first  importance  to  preachers.  These  are  the  things 
which  they  must  learn  and  understand. 

68 


THEN  CAME  THE  WAR 

We  cannot  again  meet  them  under  the  high  pressure  of 
the  war  and  of  its  dangers.  Thank  God  that  is  past ;  may 
He  grant  that  it  be  past  for  ever !  But  it  will  always  be 
ours  to  accept  the  facts  as  they  are,  and  to  think  out  life's 
problems  from  the  point  of  view  of  men  who  think  like 
that.  We  must  set  ourselves  to  acquire  this  knowledge 
of  men  by  going  where  they  are.  We  have  been  trying 
to  get  men  into  our  place,  and  now  we  must  try  to  get 
ourselves  into  theirs.  The  supreme  power  of  Robert 
Browning  is  that  he  added  to  a  wide  observation  of  the 
various  phases  of  humanity  an  unequalled  dramatic 
sympathy  which  enabled  him  to  get  down  among  the 
springs  of  action  and  of  thought  which  produced  those 
phases,  and  actually  to  think  and  live  as  if  he  were  the 
man  or  woman  he  is  describing.  It  is  the  first  law  of 
preaching.^ 

One  Sunday  night,  in  a  military  theatre  at  the  front, 
a  man  preached  to  soldiers  who  on  the  morrow  were 
going  up  into  the  trenches.  His  text  was,  "Son  of  man, 
stand  upon  thy  feet,  and  I  will  speak  unto  thee."  On  the 
following  Thursday  he  went  up  into  the  front  trench. 
For  three  successive  afternoons  the  German  trench 
mortars  had  been  searching  for  a  sap-head,  and  the  third 
and  second  trenches  were  obliterated  in  an  indescribable 
debris  of  wreckage.  At  his  post  in  the  traverses  of  the 
front  trench  a  sentry  stood,  and  had  stood  there  through 
the  whole  bombardment.  They  talked  for  a  little,  and 
then  said  good-bye.  But  the  sentry  held  the  preacher's 
hand  and  reminded  him  of  his  text,  adding,  "I've  stood 
upon  my  feet."    Oh,  si  sic  semper! 

1  This  will  be  more  fully  considered  in  a  later  lecture. 


69 


LECTURE  IV 

The  Soldier's  Creed 

WE  have  considered  the  soldier  in  what  may  be 
called  the  outer  courts  of  his  religion,  his  sins 
and  virtues,  his  idealism,  his  reserves  of  char- 
acter, his  sentimental  and  visionary  mysticism.  The  fur- 
ther question  remains  as  to  his  actual  religion,  or  at  least 
as  to  what  elementary  thoughts  and  feelings  there  are  in 
him  which  may  lead  to  a  religion  if  properly  interpreted. 
Certainly  there  was  much  prayer  in  the  trenches.  As 
the  long  minutes  crept  on  towards  that  awful  hour  before 
the  dawn  when  the  company  would  go  over  the  parapet, 
he  must  have  been  less  than  human  who  did  not  feel  the 
need  for  some  friendly  relation  with  the  awful  world  he 
might  have  to  enter  so  soon,  and  it  is  probable  that  there 
were  very  few  soldiers  who  did  not  try  in  some  way  to  es- 
tablish such  relations.  Atheists  and  freethinkers  were 
blatant  at  the  base:  they  were  conspicuous  by  their  ab- 
sence, or  at  least  by  their  silence,  at  the  front.  We  have 
now  to  inquire  how  much  of  all  this  might  justly  be  called 
religion. 

Many  books  have  been  written  on  this  subject,  of  which 
Mr.  Patten's  Decoration  of  the  Cross  appears  to  me 
one  of  the  most  accurate.  Some  writers  tend  to  exag- 
gerate the  so-called  revival  of  religion  at  the  front,  and 
to  interpret  every  story  of  a  soldier's  religion  in  terms 
of  their  own  faith  rather  than  of  his.  Others,  severely 
critical,  belittle  such  accounts,  and  give  the  impression 
that  there  was  little  or  nothing  of  real  religion  in  them  all. 
It  may  at  once  be  frankly  confessed  that  there  was  very 
little  indeed  that  can  be  recorded  as  a  religious  revival 

70 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

in  the  definite  and  accustomed  meaning  of  the  words. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  experience 
which  contained  the  elements  of  a  genuine  religion,  and 
which  was  entirely  new  in  the  lives  of  the  men  upon 
whom  it  came.  One  thing  we  may  assert  with  confidence, 
viz.  that  whatever  religious  elements  were  observable,  the 
great  majority  of  them  sprang  direct  from  experience  and 
not  from  dogma. 

It  has  sometimes  been  complained,  and  not  without 
reason,  that  there  is  a  tendency  to  exalt  the  soldier  into 
an  unduly  important  position,  as  the  arbiter  of  faith  and 
the  dictator  of  the  world's  religion.  It  would  seem  that 
when  the  boys  come  home  we  are  to  learn  at  last  what 
to  believe  and  how  to  worship.  Nothing  could  be  more 
unfair  to  soldiers  than  any  such  apotheosis,  and  it  is  the 
last  thing  that  any  sensible  man  among  them  would  think 
of  claiming.  It  is  a  parallel  fallacy  to  the  fashion  of 
bowing  down  before  ''the  average  man,"  and  forgetting 
that  if  he  has  something  to  teach  the  world  he  has  far 
more  to  learn.  The  soldier  is  not  the  tyrant  of  the  civil- 
ian's faith  or  conscience.  He  is  the  pioneer  of  some 
things  which  the  Church  and  the  world  have  been  seek- 
ing for  and  which  he  has  found.  He  is  the  man  in  whose 
consciousness  many  hidden  processes  of  popular  thought 
have  come  to  clearness  and  to  definite  conviction.  He 
is,  as  it  were,  the  cutting  edge  of  popular  intellectual  and 
religious  movements.  His  experiences  are  of  priceless 
value  as  data  for  interpretation:  his  interpretations  of 
these  experiences  are  of  comparatively  little  value.  But 
if  the  Church  and  the  religious  mind  of  the  nations  will 
interpret  those  experiences,  their  interpretations  may  be 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  religious  thought. 

It  is  foolish  to  talk  of  a  new  religion  which  the  soldiers 
are  to  bring  back  with  them  from  the  trenches.  A  "new 
religion"  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  All  religion  is  just 
the  human  perception  of  the  divine  and  response  to  it. 

71 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

The  Chrisrian  religion  has  proved  itself  to  be  the  one 
medium  of  such  perception  and  response,  incomparable 
in  completeness  and  effectiveness  with  any  other  medium 
which  has  ever  been  attempted  on  the  earth.  It  is  true 
that  from  time  to  time  Christianity  needs  restatement, 
with  new  emphasis  on  certain  of  its  doctrines  and  new 
interpretation  of  them  all.  Principal  Garvie,  discussing 
such  tendencies  in  the  intellectual  situation  as  the  distrust 
of  philosophy,  the  confidence  of  science,  the  activity  of 
criticism,  and  the  prominence  of  the  social  question, 
writes:  "Whatever  may  be  our  individual  judgment  of 
this  intellectual  situation,  one  fact  is  beyond  all  doubt  or 
question.  The  Christian  gospel  needs  a  restatement  in 
which  these  tendencies  will  find  their  due  recognition, 
their  justification  where  that  is  possible,  or  their  cor- 
rection where  that  is  necessary.  Such  a  restatement  is  a 
work  of  very  great  delicacy  and  difficulty;  for,  on  the 
one  hand,  there  must  be  no  impoverishment  of  the  'faith 
once  delivered  to  the  saints,'  and,  on  the  other  hand,  this 
age  must  not  be  spoken  to  in  a  foreign  tongue."^  This 
restatement,  however,  need  not  be  a  new  creed,  but  may 
be  found  rather  in  the  forms  of  thought  and  language 
adopted  by  the  modern  preacher.  Dr.  Coffin  has  ex- 
pressed this  with  singular  felicity  in  regard  to  ordinary 
congregational  preaching :  "A  Christian  minister  .  .  .  must 
enable  the  members  of  his  congregation  to  reach  God  by 
the  existing  tracks  of  their,  perhaps  antiquated,  theologi- 
cal opinions,  while  he  attempts  to  furnish  them  with  better 
terminal  facilities  which  will  bring  more  of  them — head, 
heart,  conscience — into  the  life  with  God."^  As  to  the 
much-discussed  question  of  the  necessity  for  reformula- 
tion of  doctrines  in  a  new  creed,  that  is,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
a  task  of  insuperable  difficulty  at  the  present  time.  This 
is  not  an  age  suitable  for  creed-building.     If  any  creed 

1  The  Ritschlian  Theology,  p.  19. 

^  In  a  Day  of  Social  Rebuilding,  p.  203. 

72 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

could  be  conceived  which  would  command  universal  or 
even  wide  assent,  it  must  be  one  reduced  to  such  extreme 
simplicity  as  Dr.  Denney's  famous  suggestion  "that  the 
symbol  of  the  Church's  unity  might  be  expressed  thus: 
I  believe  in  God  through  Jesus  Christ  His  only  Son,  our 
Lord  and  Saviour."^  A  modernist  scholar  and  priest  of 
the  Continental  Roman  Church  said  to  me  during  the  war, 
"Before  the  war  there  were  many  things ;  now  there  are 
only  two — love  of  God  and  love  of  man."  Such  con- 
densed statements  of  the  essence  of  faith  are  to  many 
Christian  minds  in  the  highest  degree  welcome  and  re- 
freshing, but  it  is  questionable  whether  they  can  be  called 
creeds  in  the  proper  meaning  of  the  term.  The  method 
adopted  by  my  own  Church  has  been  to  leave  the  historic 
Confession  of  Faith  as  the  principal  standard  of  doctrine 
for  the  Church,  but  to  afford  her  ministers  and  elders  the 
relief  of  a  Declaratory  Act,  allowing  and  recognising  the 
liberty  of  diversity  of  opinion  "on  such  points  in  the  Con- 
fession as  do  not  enter  into  the  substance  of  the  Reformed 
Faith  therein  set  forth,"  and  retaining  for  the  Church 
"full  authority  to  determine,  in  any  case  which  may  arise, 
what  points  fall  within  this  description."  This  method 
doubtless  has  its  disadvantages,  but  it  is  questionable 
whether  any  other  method  could  be  found  at  present 
which  would  better  preserve  the  permanent  element  and 
at  the  same  time  leave  the  necessary  room  for  expansion 
and  development  of  faith. 

To  return  to  the  soldier,  we  have  already  touched  in 
passing  on  the  question  whether  there  was  or  was  not  a 
revival  of  religion  at  the  front.  It  is  said  that  within  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  in  France  there  was  a  definite 
revival  of  religion.  Among  our  own  troops  there  were 
many  instances  of  a  sharply  defined  experience  of  con- 
version. These,  I  think,  were  for  the  most  part  connected 
with  sudden  reversions  to  the  religious  experiences  of 

1  Jesus  and  the  Gospel,  p.  398. 

73 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

childhood.  One  soldier,  whose  long  trench-life  had  dulled 
down  all  former  memories  and  feelings  into  a  kind  of 
dazed  oblivion,  seeing  a  Bible  in  a  dugout,  exclaimed, 
as  if  he  were  remembering  a  former  life,  "Ah,  yes,  there's 
all  that!"  Very  frequently  the  moment  of  awakening 
brought  the  man  suddenly  back  to  the  memory  of  a  good 
mother,  and  some  dramatic  stories  are  told  of  sound  con- 
version wrought  by  the  unseen  mother's  reappearance  in 
conscience  and  in  affection. 

The  usual  phenomenon,  however,  was  not  any  such 
observable  and  conscious  awakening.  One  was  constantly 
impressed  and  almost  haunted  by  the  sense  that  these  men 
were  more  religious  than  they  knew.  This  fact  is  de- 
scribed in  masterly  fashion  in  the  chapter  entitled  'The 
Religion  of  the  Inarticulate"  in  A  Student  in  Arms,  where 
the  statement  occurs  that  the  mass  of  the  British  sol- 
diers "never  connected  the  goodness  in  which  they  be- 
lieved with  the  God  in  whom  the  chaplains  said  they 
ought  to  believe."  The  text  which  seemed  to  have  been 
written  expressly  to  describe  these  men  is  Isaiah's  words 
concerning  Cyrus,  "I  girded  thee  though  thou  hast  not 
known  Me."^  Cyrus  was  a  pagan,  but  he  was  chosen  by 
God  to  do  His  work.  His  heroic  figure,  the  mirror  of  the 
chivalry  of  the  ancient  world,  stands  as  a  permanent  type 
of  unconscious  Christianity,  that  most  perplexing  of  all 
the  religious  problems  of  the  modern  world.  Many  of 
our  soldiers  were  pagan  gentlemen  in  khaki,  who  spent 
the  best  years  of  their  lives  "heroically  holding  the  Mas- 
ter's lines."  And  something  in  them  was  voicing  the  in- 
tuitive spiritual  affinities  that  were  in  their  souls,  though 
in  a  tongue  which  few  of  them  could  understand.  Re- 
ligiously, from  the  orthodox  point  of  view,  they  were  in  J 
darkness,  but  to  them  as  to  Cyrus  God  was  all  the  time 
fulfilling  His  promise,  "I  will  give  thee  the  treasures  of 
darkness."    The  fact  is,  men  cannot  "die  daily,"  as  they   i 

1  Isaiah  xlv.  5. 

74 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

did,  without  undergoing  a  change  which  is  in  some  sense 
a  revelation.  You  had  multitudes  of  astonished  men 
aware  of  blind  movements  in  their  souls.  They  were 
flinging  out,  on  the  off-chance,  prayers  to  a  neglected 
God.  They  were  amazed  by  visions  which  they  did  not 
understand.  Under  highly  mystical  experience,  their 
souls  lay  awakened,  but  helpless  and  uncomprehending. 

If  we  are  to  face  this  extraordinary  situation  adequately 
we  must  so  interpret  these  experiences,  first  to  ourselves 
and  then  to  the  men  as  they  return,  as  to  build  up  out  of 
them  a  living  faith.  After  all,  religion  is  not  some  new 
thing  added  on  to  human  life ;  it  is  the  true  interpretation 
of  human  life.  It  is  ours  to  give  to  these  singular  experi- 
ences an  interpretation  which  will  reveal  the  meaning  of 
life  in  actual  faith.  There  is  urgent  need  of  this.  Their 
experiences  were  inarticulate  and  highly  charged  with 
emotion,  and  the  tendency  will  be  to  drift  back  from  them 
swiftly  into  a  life  in  which  the  net  result  of  the  war  will 
be  little  more  than  the  memory  of  an  emotion,  unless  we 
can  find  some  means  of  fixing  and  developing  that  mem- 
ory into  a  faith.  A  chaplain,  on  a  day  of  storm  and 
heavy  rain,  had  to  conduct  parade  service  with  troops  in 
the  open.  He  knew  his  business,  and  his  address  was 
short:  "No  man  but  a  fool  would  detain  you  on  such  a 
day.  My  text  is,  What  think  ye  of  Christ?'  and  my 
sermon  is,  'What  think  ye  of  Christ?'  Dismiss."  In  that 
sermon  he  got  to  the  roots  of  things.  The  question  is 
not.  What  feel  ye  ?  but,  What  think  ye  ?  To  reduce  one's 
vague  and  mingled  experiences  to  clear  statement  is  to 
make  progress  in  the  religious  life,  for  expression  reacts 
on  faith,  confirms  it  and  makes  it  permanent.  The  sol- 
dier's creed  will  be  the  interpretation  and  expression  of 
his  experiences  in  terms  of  convictions  about  religious 
facts. 

Now,  although  we  have  very  frankly  acknowledged  the 
insufficiency  of  his  experiences  uninterpreted  to  serve  him 

75 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

for  a  vital  and  efficient  faith,  yet  we  may  find  in  them  a 
pretty  complete  basis  for  such  a  faith.  And  that  faith 
will  not  be  any  new  one.  Point  by  point  it  will  turn  out 
to  be  Christianity.  Mr.  Chesterton,  with  his  characteris- 
tic liveliness  of  imagination,  tells  the  story  of  his  redis- 
covery of  the  Christian  faith.^  Some  men  set  off  in  a 
yacht  to  discover  a  new  island.  At  last  they  reached  its 
shores,  and  found  that  they  had  run  up  their  flag  upon 
the  Brighton  coast.  So  he,  wandering  afar  after  a  brand- 
new  religion,  discovered  when  he  had  reached  it  that  it 
was  just  Christianity  after  all.  Moliere's  immortal  char- 
acter, who  was  so  excited  and  gratified  when  he  was  told 
that  he  had  been  speaking  prose  all  his  life,  may  stand  for 
a  type  of  many  a  soldier  who  in  his  heart  has  been  blindly 
following  Jesus  and  knowing  not  that  it  was  He.  A  bomb 
dropped  from  a  German  airplane  in  England  just  missed 
an  ancient  church,  and  the  villagers  next  day  looked  with 
astonishment  upon  the  foundations  which  no  eye  had  seen 
for  centuries.  So  the  war  has  discovered,  in  the  hidden 
depths  of  many  a  human  heart,  the  foundations  of  the 
Christian  faith.  We  shall  attempt  an  analysis  of  this  dis- 
covery in  some  detail.  The  division  is  perhaps  arbitrary, 
and  it  is  certainly  not  exhaustive,  but  it  may  serve  as  at 
least  a  tentative  illustration  of  how  interpretation  may 
proceed.  Five  points  will  be  selected,  and  it  is  not  un- 
natural that  the  first  of  these  should  lie  in  the  direction 
of  fundamental  Calvinism. 

1.  Fatalism.  From  the  first  days  of  the  war,  no  phe- 
nomenon was  more  generally  recognised  than  fatalism. 
It  was  almost  if  not  altogether  universal  among  men  when 
they  were  going  up  to  face  the  chance  of  immediate 
death,  and  it  was  equally  observable  among  the  survivors 
who  returned  alive,  leaving  many  of  their  comrades  dead 
upon  the  field.  The  common  phrases  were  that  if  their 
number  was  up  they  would  be  killed,  and  that  nothing 

1  Orthodoxy,  ch.  i. 

76 


THE  SOLDIER^S  CREED 

could  get  them  except  the  bullet  or  the  bit  of  shrapnel 
which  had  their  name  on  it.  This  latter  phrase  reminds 
one  of  the  famous  saying  of  Napoleon  Buonaparte  at 
Montereau,  'The  bullet  that  will  kill  me  is  not  yet 
moulded."  The  two  forms  of  fatalism  are  contrasted  by 
the  audacity  of  the  latter  as  against  the  simple  humility 
of  the  former. 

Heads  were  shaken  over  this  way  of  meeting  danger. 
It  was  considered  pagan  and  superstitious  by  men  who 
had  never  been  themselves  face  to  face  with  imminent 
death.  But  even  those  who  had  blamed  it  found  to  their 
surprise  that,  when  their  own  turn  came,  precisely  the 
same  fatalism  came  with  it.  Then  they  discovered  that 
it  was  simply  natural  and  human.  It  was  indeed  inevita- 
ble, a  matter  not  in  a  man's  own  choice  at  all.  It  turned 
out  to  be  almost  mechanical  reaction  by  which  Nature 
enables  men  to  face  the  intense  strain  of  circumstances 
which,  but  for  some  such  alleviation,  would  be  beyond 
the  power  of  human  nature  to  endure.  In  such  an  hour 
men  simply  could  not  go  on  if  they  felt  themselves  re- 
sponsible for  their  own  fate.  They  must  get  rid  of  all  re- 
sponsibility, and  act  upon  the  assumption  that  their 
chances  of  life  and  death  depend  wholly  upon  a  cause 
over  which  they  have  no  control.  Crawling  from  shell- 
hole  to  shell-hole  behind  breastworks  which  have  been  al- 
most entirely  shot  away,  and  within  easy  range  of  the 
enemy's  machine-guns,  there  is  only  one  course  for  a  man 
to  take.  It  is  to  cease  from  self  altogether,  to  drop  his 
responsibility  for  himself  as  he  might  let  his  loosened 
pack  fall  from  off  his  shoulders,  to  know  that  "man  is 
immortal  till  his  work  is  done,"  and  to  go  forward  "splen- 
didly unhindered"  by  self-regarding  thoughts  of  any 
kind. 

Creed  is  implicit  in  many  acts  of  life  where  it  is  least 
suspected,  and  there  can  be  no  question  that  it  is  implicit 
in  this.    It  is  incredible  that  men  should  find  strength  or 

77 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

comfort  in  transferring  their  responsibilities  to  a  mere 
abstraction,  but  this  fataHsm  did  certainly  bring  both 
comfort  and  strength.  Surely  it  must  imply  a  subcon- 
scious sense  of  Someone  somewhere  to  whom  they  were 
passing  over  their  burdens.  If  the  number  is  up,  who 
put  it  up?  If  the  name  is  on  the  bullet,  who  wrote  it 
there?  The  same  implication  applies  to  the  fatalism  of 
India,  of  Greece,  and  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  of  old.  It  is 
expressed  in  the  Old  Testament  by  the  author  of  Eccle- 
siastes  in  the  cold  dry  light  under  which  he  wrote.  The 
reply  is  given  in  the  Psalms  and  in  the  Prophets,  where 
the  dark  yet  strengthening  fatalism  of  the  Preacher  is 
replaced  by  the  will  of  a  God  intensely  alive,  who  under- 
stands and  loves.  We  are  not  caryatides,  bearing  the 
burden  of  the  world;  it  is  God  who  bears  that  burden. 
In  grasping  that  fact,  however  dimly,  men  find  the  im- 
mense relief  of  those  who  discover  that  they  themselves 
are  not  the  ultimate  fact  of  the  universe,  and  transfer 
their  burdens  to  One  who  is.  This  means  the  abandon- 
ing of  an  intolerable  post  for  which  we  are  in  no  sense  fit. 
Thus  fatalism  when  rightly  understood  is  not  a  binding 
but  a  liberating  doctrine,  setting  men  free  to  exert  their 
powers  to  the  utmost.  As  in  the  tragedies  of  ancient 
Greece,  so  in  our  soldiers,  fatalism  did  not  destroy  lib- 
erty of  action  or  the  impulse  to  act.  On  the  contrary,  it 
quickened  these. 

Further,  there  is  some  hint  of  character  in  the  Power 
to  which  men  committed  their  destiny  in  this  fatalism. 
Austere  and  remote  that  Power  might  be,  but  in  laying 
down  their  burdens  at  its  feet  men  did  believe  in  '*an  ulti- 
mate decency  of  things."  The  trouble  which  many  ordi- 
nary men  have  felt  about  popular  theology  has  been  the 
immense  and  heavy  stupidity  of  its  God.  He  has  been 
so  represented  as  to  appear  to  them  arbitrary,  inconsistent, 
and  vain  in  His  jealousy  about  His  own  glory.  It  is  not 
to  such  a  Power  that  they  intrust  themselves  in  the  fatal- 

78 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

ism  of  battle.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  say  to  themselves 
that  He  will  be  reasonable  and  benevolent,  or  that  "Noth- 
ing can  be  good  in  Him  that  evil  is  in  me."  But  the  very 
fact  of  their  trust  implies  some  unexpressed  and  sub- 
conscious idea  that  He  is  trustworthy. 

Watts  painted  his  great  picture  of  Destiny  in  dull 
colours,  a  figure  whose  face  was  half-expunged.  It  is  not 
unlike  the  conception  of  destiny  that  underlay  the  fatal- 
ism of  the  trenches.  Yet  there  are  materials  for  a  clearer 
faith  beneath  that  dim  visage,  and  it  is  possible'  to  trans- 
late the  vision  so  as  to  disclose  a  face  with  seeing  eyes, 
and  to  gain  the  assent  of  the  man  who  has  seen  the  vision 
to  the  proposition  that  the  true  meaning  of  that  which  he 
has  seen  is,  "I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty."  Nor 
will  he  deny  that  words  were  whispered  in  his  soul  in 
those  terrible  moments  when  the  burden  fell  from  him, 
saying,  *'It  is  I,  be  not  afraid." 

2.  Mates.  We  have  already  referred  to  the  sense  of 
loneliness  which  is  one  of  the  most  characteristic  and 
most  trying  features  of  life  at  the  front.  In  the  dark  of 
the  hut,  behind  the  crowd  assembled  round  the  table  to 
watch  a  game  of  billiards,  you  would  often  feel  a  pres- 
sure at  your  elbow,  and  find  that  a  lad  had  silently  come 
close  to  you,  simply  to  feel  the  presence  of  a  friend  be- 
side him.  It  is  this  that  explains  the  difficulty  of  secur- 
ing open  order  for  a  charge,  the  soldier's  instinct  being 
to  get  nearer  and  nearer  to  each  other  in  spite  of  their 
clearly  reasoned  knowledge  of  the  danger  of  close  order. 
A  tale  is  actually  told  of  a  boy  crawling  back  wounded 
and  alone  across  No  Man's  Land,  who  found  the  body 
of  a  dead  companion,  and  lay  down  and  slept  side  by  side 
with  it,  in  relief  and  comfort.  Apart  from  any  such 
physical  contact,  it  will  be  conceded  by  all  who  have 
studied  the  facts,  that  the  strongest  and  most  compelling 
motive  at  the  front  was  the  remembrance  of  mates  and 
the  sense  of  loyalty  to  them.     In  some  cases  this  was 

79 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

drawn  out  by  the  love  of  some  particular  friend  or 
friends.  In  other  cases  it  was  more  general,  and  might 
include  the  dead  as  well  as  the  living.  It  was,  like  fatal- 
ism, a  blind  virtue,  a  desire  to  be  true  to  someone  to  whom 
they  were  bound  in  honour,  and  who  had  a  claim  upon 
their  loyalty. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  object  of  a  certain  type  of 
preaching  at  the  front  was  to  transfer  this  sense  of  com- 
radeship to  Jesus,  or  rather  to  include  Him  in  it  as  the 
Great  Mate.  In  estimating  the  worth  of  this  presenta- 
tion, great  carefulness  is  needed,  for  it  is  easy  to  exag- 
gerate both  its  value  and  its  defect.  It  may  be  safely 
estimated  that  while  a  small  number  of  men  had  had  no 
Christian  training  of  any  kind,  the  great  majority  had 
from  their  childhood  many  associations  with  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Either  in  the  home  or  in  the  Sunday  school 
they  had  received  some  Christian  teaching,  and  the  popu- 
lar hymns  were  familiar  to  them.  But  in  later  years 
much  of  all  that  had  faded  away,  and  the  recollections 
of  these  things  seemed  to  come  from  far.  The  concep- 
tion which  they  had  of  Jesus  was  of  something  antique, 
as  of  a  figure  in  a  stained-glass  window.  He  belonged 
to  ecclesiastical  history  and  interests,  and  shared  the  sense 
of  solemn  ineffectiveness  which  they  had  associated  with 
mediaeval  things.  For  them  He  was,  as  it  were,  pre- 
Raphaelite,  and  consequently  He  was  entirely  out  of  the 
line  of  their  daily  life.  Some  of  them  had  come  to  hold 
definitely  antagonistic  views  of  Him,  and  were  strongly 
prejudiced  against  Him.  Some  looked  on  Him  as  a  weak 
dreamer,  others  as  a  relentless  judge.  To  some  He  was  a 
theological  fiction,  to  others  the  representative  of  the 
leisured  classes  and  of  social  privilege. 

This  is,  to  those  who  know  Him  as  He  is,  a  most  lam- 
entable and  distressing  state  of  affairs.  Behind  it  lies 
far  more  than  these  men's  private  experience.  To  the 
early  disciples  Jesus  was  the  most  winsome  and  friendly 

80 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

of  presences.  The  story  of  His  life  has  in  it  much  of  the 
simplest  and  most  unconventional  comradeship ;  and  early 
Christianity,  both  in  its  worship  and  in  its  art,  caught  the 
gladness  and  freedom  of  His  spirit.  With  Constantine 
and  the  adoption  of  Christianity  by  the  Empire  a  new 
order  of  things  began.  The  splendour  of  churches,  the 
arrogance  of  churchmen,  and  the  pomp  of  services,  all 
conspired  to  denaturalise  the  thought  of  Christ.  The  in- 
tense and  ghastly  emphasis  laid  upon  the  horrors  of  the 
crucifixion  further  isolated  Him,  for  ''the  tortured  are 
exiles."  Monastic  asceticism,  turning  men's  consciences 
away  from  healthy  and  natural  thoughts  about  all  things, 
did  the  same  for  the  thought  of  Jesus,  whom  the  ascetics 
claimed  as  one  of  themselves;  while  churchmen,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  encouraged  the  idea  that  He 
was  to  be  regarded  as  the  head  of  the  clerical  party. 
Meanwhile,  as  we  have  already  seen,  theology  (which 
has  always  been  especially  dogmatic  in  its  definition  of  the 
person  of  Christ)  completed  the  alienation.  In  the  Ro- 
man Church  one  result  was  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
Mary.  Dr.  Fisher,  of  this  University,  has  admirably 
stated  the  case :  "To  her,  and  in  a  less  degree  to  the  saints, 
the  common  Christians  looked  for  that  mediatorial  sym- 
pathy which  they  dared  not  seek  from  the  Christ  whose 
humanity  seemed  lost  in  His  exaltation."  Concerning 
this  Leckie  has  coined  his  striking  phrase,  "The  desire 
of  a  human  God."  The  orthodoxy  of  the  Reformed 
Church  was  very  zealous  in  its  attack  on  the  worship  of 
Mary,  and  on  all  statues,  pictures,  and  other  works  of 
art  which  were  in  any  way  connected  with  her.  It  was  not 
always  equally  careful  to  inquire  into  the  human  reasons 
for  that  loving  worship,  nor  to  supply  any  other  concep- 
tion of  divine  tenderness  which  might  take  the  place  of 
that  which  it  banned.  Thus  for  many  centuries  there  has 
been  rising  from  many  hearts,  side  by  side  with  the 
psalms  and  hymns  of  the  Church's  liturgy,  the  cry  of  an- 

81 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

other  Mary,  'They  have  taken  away  my  Lord,  and  1 
know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him." 

To  all  this  long  and  unhappy  history  of  estrangement, 
great  numbers  of  the  men  who  have  been  fighting  for  us 
had  fallen  heirs,  and  Christ  had  either  never  been,  or 
had  ceased  to  be,  among  the  realities  and  forces  of  their 
lives.  In  the  war  many  of  them  have  discovered  or  redis- 
covered Him  as  an  actual  part  of  their  world.  He  has  be- 
come clearly  personal  and  friendly.  Their  own  needs 
have  recalled  Him,  and  their  own  experiences,  throwing 
a  new  light  on  His  story,  have  made  Him  familiar.  He 
has,  as  it  were,  taken  them  into  His  confidence,  and  shown 
them  what  He  did  and  how  He  felt  on  this  same  earth 
which  has  been  proving  so  strange  a  place  for  them.  On 
wayside  crucifixes  powdered  with  drifting  snow,  the  pass- 
ing soldier,  as  he  shivered  by,  recognised  "a  brother  born 
for  adversity,"  and  remembered  that  it  was  said  of  Him 
that  *'in  all  their  afflictions  He  was  afflicted." 

It  is  probable  that  most  men  are  aware,  at  least  at 
times,  of  a  mysterious  unseen  companion  whose  presence 
haunts  them  faintly,  and  yet  mitigates  the  pain  and  fear 
of  loneliness.  Unidentified,  this  alter  ego  is  at  least 
friendly  rather  than  hostile,  but  is  too  vague  to  be  of 
much  service  in  the  practical  and  moral  perplexities  of 
life.  To  such  men  there  came  the  sudden  identification 
of  that  unseen  companion  with  Jesus.  He  who  had  been 
so  distant  and  so  ineflFective  broke  on  them  with  the  sur- 
prise of  Christ, — "familiar,  condescending,  patient,  free," 
— and  they  recognised  Him  as  they  sang  their  favourite 
hymns.  In  the  ancient  church  of  Aquileia  there  is  a 
newly  carved  head  of  Christ,  known  as  "The  Christ  of 
the  trenches."  It  was  carved  by  an  artist  of  high  talent, 
and  he  took  for  his  model  the  face  and  head  of  a  comrade 
lying  dead  beside  him  in  the  trench.  It  is  in  white  mar- 
ble, and  the  expression  is  indescribably  human  in  its  ap- 
peal, while  tears  still  linger  below  the  lashes  of  the  eyes, 

82 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

newly  closed  in  death.  That  is  Jesus  the  Mate,  and  the 
rediscovered  humanity  was  passionately  felt.  At  a  certain 
sleeping-hut  beside  a  railhead,  a  man  was  speaking  to 
troops  who  had  newly  arrived  late  in  the  night,  to  sleep 
there  before  going  up  into  the  fighting  line  next  morning. 
The  light  was  dim,  and  the  two  or  three  hundred  figures 
lying  weary  and  silent  in  the  bunks  and  on  the  floor  had 
evidently  drawn  out  a  passionate  sympathy  in  the  speak- 
er's heart.  He  spoke  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Brother,  who 
understood  and  loved  each  man  of  them,  and  remembered 
just  how  it  felt  to  be  as  they  were.  The  silence  was  tense, 
and  the  mingled  awe  and  tenderness  were  such  that  when 
he  closed  his  prayer  he  did  not  say  "Amen,"  but  simply 
"Good-night,  Jesus."  Long  afterwards,  some  of  those 
who  survived  spoke  of  that  incident  as  one  that  had  made 
a  permanent  mark  upon  their  lives.  The  daring  words 
expressed  exactly  that  which  it  was  in  their  hearts  to  say. 
A  friend  of  my  own  passing  through  the  shaded  ward  of 
a  hospital,  heard  from  the  bed  of  a  dying  soldier  the 
words,  "Water!  Water!"  He  went  and  brought  the 
water,  and  the  lad  panted  out  the  broken  words,  "That 
was  Jesus  Christ.  I  asked  Him  for  water — and  He 
brought  it  to  me.    God  never  lets  a  fellow  down." 

This  phenomenon  has  been  criticised  for  its  moral  in- 
sufficiency, and  the  slightness  of  the  relations  which  it 
establishes  with  Christ.  It  seems  to  ally  itself  with  the 
sympathetic  but  feeble  God  proclaimed  by  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells  and  others,  who  suffers  with  men  but  is  helpless  to 
overcome  the  causes  of  their  suffering.  Anything  that 
calls  itself  God  must  be  able  as  well  as  friendly — able  to 
save  to  the  uttermost.  "In  humanising  God  we  have 
dwarfed  Him.  The  God  of  many  prayers  and  sermons 
is  a  companionable  Deity  to  whom  men  approach  unawed. 
.  .  .  This  'heavenly  pal'  (if  one  may  be  pardoned  the  ex- 
pression) is  so  good  that 'He  can  be  counted  on  to  do  all 
He  can  to  help  us  with  a  world  that  has  gone  to  pieces ; 

83 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

but  one  is  not  convinced  that  He  is  competent  for  so  gi- 
gantic a  task  as  its  complete  rebuilding.'^^  This  is  emi- 
nently true  and  just,  and  it  warns  us  against  a  kind  of 
teaching  which  is  both  shallow  and  dangerous,  confound- 
ing the  love  of  God  with  a  kind  of  infinite  but  futile  good 
nature.  But  the  Divine  Mate  of  the  soldier  is  not  the  God 
of  Mr.  Britling,  still  less  the  Jesus  of  First  and  Last 
Things.  From  any  such  impotence  the  conception  of 
Christ  is  defended  by  the  soldier's  fatalism,  which  implies 
an  almighty  will  and  purpose  as  well  as  a  tender  compas- 
sion. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  conception  is  incomplete 
until  we  have  taken  into  consideration  its  most  direct 
consequence.  We  have  already  noted  how  strongly  the 
sense  of  honour  was  developed  in  the  soldiers.  That 
sense  of  honour  was  generally  directed  towards  their 
mates.  I  remember  asking  a  lad  employed  in  the  bakeries 
at  a  base,  whether  he  would  be  glad  to  go  back  to  the 
trenches.  His  answer  was,  "Well,  not  exactly,  but  we 
would  all  be  glad  to  get  back  beside  our  mates;  why 
should  they  be  there  while  we  are  safe  back  here  ?"  That 
was  certainly  a  general  attitude.  The  mate  relationship 
included  an  unconquerable  instinct  and  conscience  of 
playing  the  game  by  one's  mates.  It  is  perhaps  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  sense  of  honour  was  found  in  the 
idea  of  comradeship  more  than  even  in  that  of  love. 

This  sense  of  honour  can  be  applied  to  the  relationship 
of  men  with  Christ.  Among  the  students  in  Edinburgh, 
I  have  found  it  to  be  by  far  the  strongest  appeal  for 
character  and  nobility.  It  is  a  sound  appeal,  and  draws 
forth  the  highest  elements  in  men.  For  His  sake,  even  if 
He  be  very  imperfectly  realised, — even  if  it  be  but  the 
desire  to  be  fair  to  someone  who  has  a  claim  upon  their 
honour, — most  healthy-minded  young  men  will  do  much 
and  surrender  much.    But  the  Christ  of  the  trenches  was 

1  7w  a  Day  of  Social  Rebuilding,  p.  209. 

84 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

far  more  to  many  men  than  merely  a  vague  "someone." 
Matthew  Arnold  has  said  of  Him:  **Not  less  important 
than  the  teachings  given  by  Jesus  is  the  temper  of  the 
giver,  His  temper  of  sweetness  and  reasonableness." 
"The  character  and  discourse  of  Jesus  Christ  possess  .  .  . 
two  signal  powers,  mildness  and  sweet  reasonableness. 
The  latter,  the  power  which  so  puts  before  our  view  duty 
of  every  kind  as  to  give  it  the  force  of  an  intuition,  as 
to  make  it  seem — to  make  the  total  sacrifice  of  our  ordi- 
nary self  seem — the  most  simple,  natural,  winning,  neces- 
sary thing  in  the  world."^  Few  of  the  soldiers,  doubt- 
less, had  ever  read  these  words ;  yet  there  was  something 
at  the  front  which  constantly  reminded  one  of  the  pas- 
sage. Faulty  as  their  achievement  may  have  often  been, 
yet  the  thought  of  Jesus  as  Mate  did  carry  with  it  a  desire 
to  keep  honour  with  Him. 

3.  Sacrifice.  No  one  can  think  of  Jesus  without  being 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  problem  of  sacrifice,  and  it 
is  in  the  soldiers'  constant  experience  of  sacrifice  that  the 
process  from  experience  to  faith  reaches  its  most  distinct 
and  familiar  phase.  To  many  young  men  in  ordinary 
times  life  is  practically  without  sacrifice.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  any  clear  call  for  it,  they  take  the  line  of  least 
resistance,  and  the  natural  love  of  comfort  and  of  pleas- 
ure is  the  predominant  motive  of  their  daily  lives.  With 
the  call  to  arms,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  such  young 
men,  neither  more  nor  less  selfish  than  their  neighbours, 
suddenly  chose  and  accepted  a  life  of  supreme  and  daily 
self-sacrifice.  It  was  now  a  thing  not  to  be  avoided  as 
formerly,  but  to  be  expected  and  endured.  We  have  al- 
ready referred  to  the  discomforts  of  the  campaign — the 
noise,  the  mud,  the  wet  clothes,  the  broken  sleep.  As  you 
watched  a  group  of  them  returning  from  the  trenches, 
"you  saw  in  their  exhausted  frames  and  tired  eyes  the 

1  Essays  in  Criticism,  ii.  p.  263. 

85 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

symbol  of  their  sacrifice."^  Entering  a  dugout  newly- 
taken  from  the  Germans  on  one  of  the  ridges,  I  was 
stifled  by  the  foul  air,  and  said  something  sympathetic  to 
the  man  on  the  clay  bed  beside  me.  His  answer  was, 
"This !  This  is  paradise  to  what  we've  been  through  be- 
fore we  took  the  ridge."  Add  to  this  the  constant  call  to 
face  atrocious  danger,  and  the  pain  of  wounds  while  they 
lay  untended  on  the  field.  Then  remember  the  thousands 
who  have  gone  with  open  eyes  to  certain  death,  to  hold 
an  outpost  or  to  save  a  company ;  and  the  many  instances 
of  officers  and  men  who  have  thrown  themselves  upon  live 
bombs  that  they  might  save  their  neighbours  by  the  sacri- 
fice of  their  own  lives,  or  in  other  ways  have  deliberately 
given  their  lives  for  others.  The  most  astonishing  fact 
about  it  all  was  the  small  amount  of  positive  belief  which 
they  seemed  to  hold.  One  used  to  feel  that  to  do  their 
work  would  require  all  the  faith  one  had,  and  strain  it 
almost  to  the  breaking  point.  But,  apparently  without  any 
such  support,  they  went  in  thousands  unhesitatingly  into 
the  depths  of  sacrifice.  If  one  is  astonished  at  the  abso- 
luteness of  the  sacrifice  upon  so  slender  a  capital  of  faith, 
one  also  is  assured  that  they  must  have  discovered  some 
strengthening  secret  in  the  adventure. 

The  discovery  was,  perhaps,  seldom  formulated,  but  it 
was  felt.  It  was  that  somehow  or  other  the  sacrifice  was 
worth  while,  and  that  all  high  adventure  and  all  real 
greatness  of  spirit  reveal  sacrifice  as  an  element  deep  in 
the  heart  of  things,  an  integral  part  of  life.  They  never 
knew  that,  in  the  days  when  it  was  a  trial  if  a  man  broke 
his  pipe  or  found  the  elevator  service  out  of  order.  Now 
they  knew  that  there  had  been  something  lacking  in  those 
easy  days,  which  made  their  present  life  with  all  its  hor- 
rors a  richer  and  a  greater  thing.  They  discovered  the 
fact  that  the  centre  of  their  flag  is  a  blood-red  cross.  The 
Union  Jack  proclaims  by  that  cross  the  fact  that  sacrifice 

1  Patten,  The  Decoration  of  the  Cross. 

86 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

is  at  the  heart  of  all  great  ideals.  Patriotism  without  it 
is  empty  boasting;  love  without  it  is  but  self-indulgence. 
It  lies  behind  all  the  discoveries  of  science,  and  it  is  es- 
sential to  all  great  art.  We  knew  these  things  in  an  ab- 
stract kind  of  way  before,  as  pious  but  strictly  theoreti- 
cal opinions,  but  we  did  not  realise  them  nor  bring  them 
often  to  the  test  of  practice.  Now  we  know  that  whether 
the  earth  be  small  or  great  "it  is  always  great  enough, 
provided  it  gives  us  a  stage  for  suffering  and  for  love." 
So  the  meaning  of  pain  is  changed,  and  we  learn  to  for- 
give it.  Not  that  many  soldiers  would  tell  of  "the  joys 
of  renunciation."  That  is  beyond  them,  as  it  is  beyond 
most  of  us.  It  may  be  true  for  some  who  have  time  for 
long  meditation.  But  the  soldier  does  not  meditate  in 
such  hours;  he  has  other  things  to  do.  This,  however, 
he  does  discover,  that  sacrifice  is  not  a  cruel  and  wanton 
injury  imposed  upon  mankind,  but  part  of  the  essential 
structure  of  human  life.  He  discovers  that  sacrifice  is 
inherent  in  all  that  is  best,  and  that  you  find  your  life 
when  you  throw  it  away.  In  more  senses  than  one, 
Britain  has  been  reborn  through  sacrifice. 

To  many  of  those  men  their  own  sufferings  have  given 
their  first  understanding  glimpse  of  the  cross  and  sacri- 
fice of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  appropriate  and  suggestive 
that  in  the  plain  little  hall  to  which  the  British  Command- 
er-in-Chief went  each  Sunday  to  worship,  a  medallion  on 
the  wall  displayed  the  cross  of  Constantine  with  its  in- 
scription, "In  hoc  signo  vincesf'  Crosses  and  crucifixes 
were  everywhere,  and  the  soldiers  understood  their  mean- 
ing with  an  altogether  new  insight.  The  Cross  of  Christ 
has  many  meanings,  some  of  them  mysterious  beyond  all 
explaining.  But  one  thing  is  plain  and  easy  to  be  under- 
stood. It  is  the  revelation  that  there  is  sacrifice  in  the 
heart  of  God  Himself.  In  that  Cross  we  see  not  one  his- 
toric event  only,  but  a  perpetual  element  in  human  history. 
All  the  pain  of  the  world,  all  its  shame  and  suffering,  are 

87 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

found  here  in  the  heart  of  God.  We  are  for  ever  discov- 
ing  new  meanings  in  the  Cross — the  tall  Cross,  standing 
erect  amid  the  wreckage  of  centuries ;  the  austere  Cross, 
restraining  the  sins  of  the  generations ;  the  mighty  Cross, 
commanding  the  activities  and  the  destiny  of  the  world ; 
the  divine  Cross,  with  its  foot  in  the  hell  of  man's  trans- 
gressions and  its  head  in  the  heaven  of  God's  forgive- 
ness. But  the  war  has  revealed  it  most  especially  as  the 
human  Cross,  whereon  God  came  to  the  side  of  sinful  and 
suffering  man,  and  man  found  God  nearer  to  him  than  all 
his  griefs,  nearer  than  his  very  sins. 

It  is  in  this  way  that  many  soldiers  have  discovered  for 
themselves  the  Cross  of  Calvary.     "I  can  write  of  what 
I  have  seen  and  know,"  says  Mr.  Patten  in  The  Decora- 
tion of  the  Cross.    "I  can  speak  of  what  I  have  learned 
after  nearly  two  years  at  the  front,  and  I  can  bear  this 
testimony:  the  army  is  full  of  men  who  are  living  their 
lives  in  the  very  spirit  of  Christ,  the  spirit  of  sacrifice. 
.  .  .  Calvary  is  visible  from  every  point  in  the  front.  •  •  .   | 
I  have  been  amazed  to  discover  how  few  soldiers  fail  to 
understand  the  Cross  of  Christ.    They  have  borne  a  cross 
themselves — the  cross  of  hardship,  loneliness,  and  pain — 
and  when  .  .  .  you  speak  about  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  their    i 
eyes  fill  with  tears,  for  they  know  what  you  mean.    Every   | 
battlefield  commands  a  view  of  Calvary's  hill."     In  a 
true  sense  they  have  been  "crucified  with  Christ"  and 
have  been  called  upon  "to  fill  up  what  was  behind  in  the 
afflictions  of  Christ  in  their  flesh."     They  have  trodden 
the  Via  dolorosa,  and  have  found  high  company  there,  for 
there  they  have  met  with  that  great  Brother  who  trod  I 
it  first  alone.    The  reasons  that  have  brought  them  to  it   I 
are,  in  part,  the  same  as  those  which,  in  an  infinitely   | 
greater  sense,  brought  Him — witness  to  the  truth,  love  of    1 
men,  and  the  sin  of  the  world.    A  friend  has  told  me  how, 
walking  along  a  trench,  he  saw  a  boy  resting  in  his  khaki 
overcoat.    He  spoke  a  friendly  word,  but  received  no  an- 

88 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

swer.  Stooping  down,  he  saw  the  thin  red  line  of  blood 
upon  the  face,  that  told  its  own  story.  "Then,"  he  said, 
*'with  an  overwhelming  rush  the  words  swept  over  me, 
This  is  my  body,  which  is  broken  for  you.'  "  In  a  thun- 
der-storm near  Abbeville  a  soldier  was  killed  in  his  tent 
by  lightning.  Quite  near  the  tent  there  was  an 
iron  crucifix  with  decorative  tracery,  and  on  the  boy's 
breast  they  found  an  exact  impression  of  it.  That  boy 
is  in  a  sense  symbolic  of  them  all.  The  stigmata  of  St. 
Francis  were  not  more  truly  the  gift  of  God  than  was  the 
seal  of  the  Cross  upon  these  men's  souls.  Some  few  of 
them  have  received  the  Victoria  Cross;  many  thousands 
have  received  the  little  white  wooden  cross  that  marks 
the  graves  of  fallen  heroes ;  many  have  received,  in  a  new 
revelation  of  their  own  lives  and  of  Christ's  death,  the 
Decoration  of  the  Cross. 

It  is  for  us  to  interpret  to  them  the  meaning  of  their 
own  experience.  Without  knowing  it,  they  are  bearing 
in  their  bodies  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus;  it  is  ours 
to  let  them  know.  It  has  often  been  remarked  with  as- 
tonishment how  much  of  the  faithful  preaching  of  the 
Cross  has  failed  to  make  an  impression  upon  those  who 
heard  it.  The  reason  is  partly  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
it  has  often  been  preached  without  emotion,  and  it  is  a 
message  which  ought  never  to  be  given  except  with  pas- 
sion. The  preaching  of  the  Cross  will  never  be  convinc- 
ing so  long  as  it  is  dispassionate.  It  is  only  when  the  fire 
of  the  Cross  burns  in  the  preacher's  breast,  and  il- 
luminates the  whole  field  of  life  and  death,  that  it 
will  spread  and  kindle  other  fires.  Apart  from  the  ques- 
tion of  its  efifectiveness  there  is  a  personal  consideration 
for  the  preacher  here.  It  is  always  dangerous — morally 
and  spiritually  dangerous — to  look  on  and  discuss  from 
a  safe  distance  the  agony  and  sacrifice  of  another, 
who  is  suffering  for  things  that  are  precious  to  one- 
self.    The  oftener  a  preacher  does  it,  the  deader  does 

89 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

his  heart  become  and  the  weaker  his  preaching.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  must  remember  that  the  preaching  of  the 
Cross  has  suffered  from  lack  of  experience  in  the  hearers 
as  well  as  from  lack  of  passion  in  those  who  preached. 
It  left  them  cold  because  they  did  not  know  by  experience 
anything  of  what  it  meant.  Now  they  are  in  a  position 
to  understand  better  what  Christ  did,  because  of  what 
they  themselves  have  been  doing.  His  sufferings  and  His 
motives  alike  have  grown  familiar,  and  they  find  much 
of  the  strangeness  gone  from  the  story  of  His  death. 
They  are  ready  to  find  in  His  Cross  both  companionship 
and  shelter,  when,  for  the  redeeming  of  the  world  from 
menacing  powers  of  evil,  they  are  taking  up  their  own 
cross,  and  following  Him  in  sacrifice. 

4.  Death.  The  effect  of  the  war  upon  the  popular  con- 
ception of  death  presents  one  of  the  most  unexpected  and 
most  deeply  interesting  of  psychological  phenomena.  In 
the  lands  and  homes  from  which  the  soldiers  went  out  to 
the  war,  the  death  of  so  many  of  the  dearest  and  best  is 
felt  as  the  bitterest  tragedy  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
The  sense  of  loss  and  of  immeasurable  waste  is  appalling, 
and  questionings  which  challenge  faith  arise  on  all  sides. 
The  utter  indiscriminateness  of  the  slaughter  is  perhaps 
the  obscurest  and  most  deplorable  aspect  of  the  case. 
The  most  brilliant  spirits  and  lovable  personalities  lie 
side  by  side  with  the  lowest  and  coarsest.  And  God, 
who  has  taught  us  to  discriminate  between  these,  has  not 
Himself  discriminated.  And  then,  the  lost  influence  of 
the  noblest  impoverishes  not  the  present  only,  but  the  fu- 
ture as  well.  The  generations  to  come  will  miss  the  price- 
less heritage  of  their  genius,  as  the  present  generation  will 
miss  the  inspiration  of  their  lives. 

That  is  the  view  of  death  seen  from  afar,  but  at  the 
front  it  was  not  so.  There,  where  death  was  so  familiar, 
a  very  surprising  change  came  upon  its  aspect.  Before 
the  war,  when  these  soldiers  were  civilians,  they  shared 

90 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

the  common  sentiments  and  conceptions  of  death.  It  was 
an  exceptional  occurrence,  that  came  upon  rare  occasions 
with  a  spectral  stride  into  the  homes  of  the  living.  It 
seemed  an  outlandish  thing,  about  which  mysterious  hor- 
rors gathered.  Often  these  sentiments  were  reinforced 
by  homeless  and  uncanny  imaginations  of  the  dim  here- 
after, presenting  to  the  crude  imagination  of  the  sur- 
vivors visions  of  a  dull  heaven  or  a  grotesque  hell.  At  the 
war  death  became  familiar.  Every  day  they  looked  into 
his  eyes  and  heard  the  rattle  of  his  loaded  dice. '  In  every 
graveyard,  at  the  end  of  the  row  of  graves  already  oc- 
cupied by  their  comrades,  there  was  the  long  deep  trench 
dug  and  waiting  for  the  next  comers.  In  the  trenches 
they  many  a  time  looked  through  their  periscopes  to  the 
enemy  lines  across  ground  strewn  with  ungathered 
corpses.  When  they  returned  to  the  billets  behind,  it  was 
to  a  region  where  crosses  were  thick  among  the  newly 
sprung  green  as  daisies  on  a  lawn. 

The  effect  of  all  this  was  in  the  highest  degree  sur- 
prising. One  might  have  expected  that  the  horror  of 
death  would  be  intensified  to  an  inconceivable  extent,  but 
it  was  not  so.  Death  seemed  to  have  overshot  his  mark, 
and  to  have  been  found  out  and  unmasked.  It  was  not 
that  they  grew  merely  callous  and  accustomed.  They  did 
not  want  to  die  any  more  than  they  had  done  before. 
Yet  the  fear  of  death  had  vanished.  It  was  on  the  rarest 
occasions  that  one  found  any  trace  of  it.  It  was  as  if  all 
the  ghastly  shadows  had  suddenly  fled  away,  and  left 
men's  minds  quiet  and  natural  in  full  view  of  death.  For 
they  had  discovered  that  they  did  not  believe  in  its  fi- 
nality. Apart  altogether  from  religious  faith,  they  had 
the  firm  conviction  that  all  does  not  end  at  the  grave, 
but  that  those  who  die  are  still  alive  somewhere,  still  ac- 
tive and  aware.  The  horizons  of  this  mortal  life  had 
somehow  swept  out  and  widened,  so  that  death  was  seen 
to  be  but  an  incident  in  the  larger  life,  an  episode  in  a 

91 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

A  young  officer  of  my  acquaintance  was 
killed  in  France.  Three  days  later  his  sister  dreamed 
that  she  saw  him  sitting  in  a  mess-room  with  his  fellow- 
officers,  evidently  in  the  highest  of  spirits.  "Why,  Dick," 
she  said  to  him,  *T  thought  you  were  dead."  **Dead!" 
he  shouted,  tossing  back  his  head  with  a  hearty  laugh. 
"No,  we're  not  dead;  we're  only  waiting  for  new  uni- 
forms." Nothing  could  more  perfectly  express  the  view 
of  death  I  have  known  as  general  at  the  front.  In  fact, 
they  discovered  a  great  natural  conviction,  not  reasoned 
out  but  instinctive,  the  conviction  of  the  certainty  of  a 
future  life.  The  poor  clay,  about  to  be  wrapped  in  its 
black  blanket,  was  "not  him."  He  was  elsewhere,  but  he 
was  still  alive.  Thus  the  violent  storms  and  tensions  of 
the  war  had  cleared  the  air,  and  revealed  to  men  their 
intuitive  knowledge  of  their  immortality,  in  the  form  of 
an  intense  and  definite  personal  assurance. 

The  same  effect  has  been  produced,  not  universally  but 
widely,  among  those  who  have  been  bereaved.  "In  each 
of  our  houses  there  lives  and  reigns  a  young  dead  man 
in  the  glory  of  his  strength."^  The  heaven  of  which  we 
think  to-day  is  not  the  heaven  of  five  years  ago.  It  is  full 
of  young  men  whom  we  know  and  love.  Thomas  Aqui- 
nas believed  that  the  dead  are  all  of  the  age  at  which 
Christ  died,  the  old  going  back,  and  the  children  forward, 
to  that  period  of  life.  It  is  some  such  heaven  as  this 
that  we  feel  to  be  above  us  now.  And  most  of  us  are 
surer  of  it  than  we  were  before,  having  also  learned  in 
our  degree  to  view  life  as  a  larger  whole  than  formerly 
we  did,  a  whole  in  which  death  is  included  but  as  an  in- 
cident in  life.  Death  has  made  such  a  demonstration  of 
his  power  and  sovereignty  over  us  as  he  never  made  be- 
fore in  all  the  centuries;  and  the  astonishing  result  is,  a 
countless  multitude  of  men  and  women  are  surer  of  im- 
mortality to-day  than  they  were  in  1913. 

1  Maeterlinck. 

92 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

So  far,  we  have  been  dealing  only  with  the  belief  in 
immortality  apart  from  religion.  The  belief  in  a  future 
life  has  disclosed  itself  at  the  seat  of  war  as  a  fundamental 
element  in  human  nature,  an  instinctive  conviction  of  the 
soul  of  man.  But  that  is  obviously  not  enough.  When 
the  trials  which  disclosed  it  are  over,  men  will  forget, 
and  lose  it  among  the  absorbing  interests  of  the  world. 
To  really  grasp  and  hold  it,  so  that  it  will  master  and  in- 
spire us  amid  the  passing  shows  of  life,  we  must  enter  the 
larger  world  of  the  spiritual  and  get  in  among  the  powers 
of  the  eternal  life.  But  the  only  key  to  that  eternal  life  is 
in  the  hands  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  He  who  grasped  and 
embodied  in  Himself  the  larger  conception  of  life  as  a 
whole.  It  was  He  who  proclaimed  the  essentially  inci- 
dental character  of  death,  calling  it  but  a  sleep.  It  was 
He  who  for  all  mortals  made  the  great  venture,  and 
came  back  to  reinforce  our  native  instinct  with  the  as- 
surance that  neither  death  nor  life  shall  be  able  to  sepa- 
rate us  from  the  love  of  God  which  is  in  Him.  Towards 
that  Christian  faith  in  immortality  the  soldier's  discovery 
of  his  immortality  is  but  a  step,  but  it  is  a  very  great  and 
important  step.  It  is  fot  us  as  preachers  to  take  full  ad- 
vantage of  the  advance  he  has  already  made,  and  to  show 
the  further  advance  which  it  involves. 

5.  Resurrection.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  doc- 
trine which,  in  the  theological  statement  of  it,  had  less  in- 
terest or  even  meaning  for  soldiers.  The  stories  of  the 
resurrection  of  our  Lord  are  very  beautiful,  but  they  are 
out  of  the  sphere  of  the  ordinary  man's  experience.  And 
the  ordinary  man  knows  that  for  the  scholar  they  present 
points  of  serious  difficulty  in  detail  which  divide  expert 
opinion.  But  the  vital  centre  of  the  doctrine  is  the  as- 
surance that  Jesus  lived  again  after  He  had  been  cruci- 
fied, that  He  took  means  to  convince  men  of  that  fact,  and 
that  He  lives  now  and  for  ever.  The  Christian  Church 
rose  upon  that  profound  conviction.    Death  had  in  Him 

93 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

been  conquered  by  life :  He  was  the  Conqueror,  and  His 
victory  was  for  all  mankind. 

Further,  the  experience  of  Jesus  must  be  regarded 
typically  as  well  as  historically.  The  story  told  in  the 
closing  chapters  of  the  Evangelists  is  not  a  mere  series 
of  events.  These  events  stand  for  certain  great  processes 
which  repeat  themselves  in  human  experience  age  after 
age.  Religious  development  is  never  a  smooth  evolution, 
but  an  alternation  of  dying  and  rising  from  the  dead. 
Calvary  and  then  resurrection  is  the  method  of  God  in 
history.  They  are  even  the  method  of  God  in  nature. 
The  evening  and  the  morning  are  the  first  day  and  every 
succeeding  day.  The  death  of  the  year  in  winter  and  the 
resurrection  of  the  spring,  are  the  material  out  of  which 
the  pagan  religions  arose,  both  in  the  East  and  in  the 
West.  Now  it  so  happens  that  we  have  lived  through 
the  greatest  and  most  significant  epoch  of  the  world's 
history  since  Christ  died  in  Jerusalem,  and  the  tragedy 
of  Calvary  has  been  repeated  under  our  eyes.  What  is 
to  be  the  resurrection  for  this  Calvary  of  the  latter  days  ? 

Turn  with  me  back  to  the  huts,  the  tents,  the  dugouts 
of  the  front.  Let  us  walk  among  them  through  the  night, 
and  listen  as  we  pass.  "Revolution,"  "Wages,"  "Labour," 
"Housing,"  "Education,"  "Syndicalism" — these  are  the 
words  you  will  hear.  Everywhere  through  the  dark  men 
are  straining  their  eyes  for  a  glimpse  of  the  new  world 
beyond  the  war.  Some  are  thinking  hard ;  some  are  talk- 
ing wildly;  all  are  listening  eagerly.  Some  of  them  are 
grim  and  angry ;  others  are  full  of  hope.  For  the  joy 
that  is  set  before  them  they  are  enduring  the  cross.  But 
all  of  them  are  aware  of  the  dawn.  The  night  is  dark, 
but  the  quiver  of  morning  light  is  in  their  blood.  The 
one  thing  absolutely  agreed  on  is  that  the  future  of  their 
land  shall  be  different  from  what  the  past  has  been.  In 
the  words  of  one  of  themselves,  "We  don't  want  to  sacri- 
fice ourselves  without  some  good  coming  to  those  we  leave 

94      • 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

behind  us."  Say  what  you  will  about  the  wisdom  or  un- 
wisdom of  this  opinion  or  that,  the  fact  remains  that  these 
opinions  are  things  you  will  have  to  reckon  with  in  the 
immediate  future. 

That  future  will  be  either  disastrous  or  splendid  accord- 
ing as  it  is  Christless  or  Christian.  The  alternative  is, 
Revolution  or  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Some  of  its  detailed 
problems  we  shall  consider  in  a  future  lecture  entitled 
"The  Preacher  as  Statesman."  Meanwhile,  I  would 
merely  point  out  to  you  that  it  is  our  part  to  ifiterpret  it, 
both  to  soldiers  and  to  civilians,  and  to  do  what  we  can 
to  ensure  that  the  reborn  world  of  to-morrow  shall  be  a 
world  of  righteousness  and  love,  and  not  a  world  of 
hatred  and  of  blood.  The  soldier  who  has  discovered 
Calvary  has  also  discovered  the  resurrection,  if  you  will 
so  interpret  to  him  his  just  aspirations.  If  he  rise  with 
Christ,  he  will  seek  those  things  that  are  above.  In  the 
ruined  and  roofless  church  of  Dickebusch,  all  the  in- 
scriptions on  the  walls  are  shot  away  except  one.  It  is  a 
little  plaster  circlet  remaining  intact  above  the  shattered 
altar,  and  it  reads,  "Instaurare  omnia  in  Christ o/^  That 
is  for  an  allegory  of  the  war,  if  we  have  grace  given  to 
us  to  make  it  so. 

It  is  obvious  that  conditions  such  as  these  must  present 
very  vital  problems  for  the  preacher.  In  some  instances, 
even  at  the  front,  one  learned  at  least  how  not  to  preach. 
It  is  said  that  upon  occasions  sermons  were  delivered  to 
men  in  steel  helmets  upon  such  subjects  as  the  transmigra- 
tion of  souls,  or  the  question  whether  the  Holy  Ghost 
proceeded  from  the  Father  only  or  from  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  The  contrast  between  such  discourses  and  the 
experience  of  those  who  listened  to  them  would  be  lu- 
dicrous if  it  were  not  so  tragic  and  so  unpardonable.  So 
far  as  I  was  able  to  judge,  the  usual  preaching  in  the  army 
was  human,  understanding,  and  sympathetic,  and  was 

95 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

valued  by  the  soldiers  as  a  source  of  strengthening  and 
faith.  The  preachers  avoided  conventional  phrases,  and 
instead  of  the  general  appeal  to  "come  to  Jesus"  they  led 
the  men  up  from  their  own  needs  to  Him  who  could  so 
abundantly  supply  all  human  need,  using  the  spiritual  con- 
ditions of  the  war  as  a  basis  for  fuller  faith. 

The  war  has  done  much  to  make  preaching  effective. 
It  has  severed  the  artificial  from  the  real.  It  has  revealed 
the  latent  good  underlying  the  lives  and  actions  of  men 
who  had  previously  made  no  profession  of  religion.  It 
has  shown  to  many  that  love  and  not  hatred  is  at  the  deep 
red  heart  of  it  all.  In  your  coming  into  the  conflict,  as  in 
their  own,  the  soldiers  of  Europe  have  seen  an  over- 
whelming compassion  for  the  miseries  of  the  world.  It 
has  hinted  at  some  further  thing  which  would  give  them 
a  further  understanding  of  those  mysterious  thoughts  and 
feelings  which  visited  them  in  their  hours  of  agony. 

The  task  that  lies  before  us  is  the  fuller  interpretation 
of  all  this.  Christ  was  there,  and  in  a  strange  tenderness 
of  heart  many  of  them  knew  it.  But  who  is  this  Christ? 
and  what  is  the  meaning  of  all  those  things  that  have  led 
them  to  turn  towards  Him?  What  is  involved  in  it,  and 
what  is  to  make  it  effective  in  their  future  lives?  Point 
by  point  they  have  been  unconsciously  finding  their  way 
back  in  the  direction  of  Christian  faith,  "led  blindfold 
through  the  glimmering  camp  of  God."  Our  opportunity 
could  not  be  greater.  It  is  for  each  one  of  us  to  discover 
for  himself  how  he  may  best  enter  into  its  responsibility 
and  grasp  its  meaning  in  detail. 

In  one  respect  especially  Christ  must  be  interpreted — 
in  His  demand  for  character  and  in  His  view  of  sin.  The 
sense  of  sin  in  the  soldier's  creed  is  by  no  means  suffi- 
ciently intelligent  or  strong.  Sometimes  one  is  met  by  the 
complaint  that  we  are  given  too  much  to  "downing  them 
with  sin,"  and  general  accusations  of  sinfulness  are  un- 
doubtedly resented.    The  flaw  in  their  armour  will  prob- 

96 


THE  SOLDIER'S  CREED 

ably  be  found  most  frequently  in  connection  with  the  view 
of  Christ  as  Comrade,  in  the  thought  of  honour  towards 
Him,  and  in  a  deeper  understanding  of  His  sacrifice  for 
sin.  The  more  fully  they  grasp  the  reality  of  His  love, 
and  especially  of  His  sacrifice,  the  more  they  will  realise 
the  poverty  of  their  response.  Every  now  and  then  one 
found  conscience  vividly  alive  beneath  an  apparent  cal- 
lousness and  indifference.  An  appeal  to  conscience  was 
sure  of  an  answer  so  long  as  it  was  given  in  a  manly  and 
a  loving  spirit.  The  blue  smoky  atmosphere  of  the  hut 
would  clear,  and  the  silence  grow  intense,  while  such 
words  went  home ;  and  as  they  passed  out  into  the  night 
the  strong  pressure  of  their  hand-grip  meant  that  the 
straight  talk  had  been  welcome.  Such  moments  revealed 
in  a  very  wonderful  way  the  power  of  the  Cross  to  cleanse 
from  sin.  To  that  great  mystery  of  Atonement  the  con- 
science-stricken boys  would  turn  with  passionate  eager- 
ness, and  find  peace.  The  lack  of  any  adequate  sense  of 
sin  has  been  often  noted,  but  in  this  respect  also  there  is 
certainly  no  lack  of  opportunity. 


97 


LECTURE  V 

The  Preacher  as  Expert 

A  CRITICISM  which  deserves  the  most  serious  at- 
tention from  ministers  is  that  which  accuses  our 
profession,  as  contrasted  with  most  others,  of  be- 
ing essentially  a  non-expert  one.  George  Eliot  launched 
her  famous  attack  against  this  real  or  supposed  character- 
istic, in  language  which,  however  violent  and  unjust  we 
may  consider  it,  may  yet  be  of  high  value  to  us  all  as  a 
warning.  "Given  a  man  with  moderate  intellect,  a  moral 
standard  not  higher  than  the  average,  some  rhetorical  af- 
fluence, and  great  glibness  of  speech,  what  is  the  career 
in  which,  without  the  aid  of  birth  or  money,  he  may  most 
easily  attain  power  and  reputation  in  English  Society? 
Where  is  that  Goschen  of  Mediocrity  in  which  a  smatter- 
ing of  science  and  learning  will  pass  for  profound  in- 
struction, where  platitudes  will  be  accepted  as  wisdom, 
bigoted  narrowness  as  holy  zeal,  unctuous  egotism  as  God- 
given  piety?  Let  such  a  man  become  an  evangelical 
preacher;  he  will  then  find  it  possible  to  reconcile  small 
ability  with  great  ambition,  superficial  knowledge  with 
the  prestige  of  erudition,  a  middling  morale  with  a  high 
reputation  for  sanctity."^ 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  has  written:  "When  the  intellectual 
history  of  this  time  comes  to  be  written,  nothing,  I  think, 
will  stand  out  more  strikingly  than  the  empty  gulf  in 
quality  between  the  superb  and  richly  fruitful  scientific 
investigations  that  are  going  on,  and  the  general  thought 
of  other  educated  sections  of  the  community.  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  scientific  men  are  as  a  whole  a  class  of 
'^Essays,  "Evangelical  Teaching,  Dr.  Gumming." 

98 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

super-men,  dealing  with  and  thinking  about  everything 
in  a  way  altogether  better  than  the  common  run  of  hu- 
manity ;  but  that,  in  their  own  field,  they  think  and  work 
with  an  intensity,  an  integrity,  a  breadth,  boldness,  pa- 
tience, thoroughness,  and  faithfulness  that  (excepting 
only  a  few  artists)  puts  their  work  out  of  all  comparison 
with  any  other  human  activity/'^ 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  in  words  now  fortunately 
familiar,  has  reminded  us  that  "The  tenacity  of  many 
ordinary  people  in  ordinary  pursuits  is  a  sort  oi  standing 
challenge  to  everybody  else.  If  one  man  can  grow  ab- 
sorbed in  delving  his  garden,  others  may  grow  absorbed 
and  happy  over  something  else.  Not  to  be  upsides  in  this 
with  any  groom  or  gardener  is  to  be  very  meanly  organ- 
ised. A  man  should  be  ashamed  to  take  his  food  if  he  has 
not  alchemy  enough  in  his  stomach  to  turn  some  of  it  into 
intense  and  enjoyable  occupation."^ 

These  three  quotations  seem  to  me  to  be  of  the  highest 
value  for  the  consideration  and  for  the  conscience  of 
every  preacher.  They  remind  him  of  the  experts  in  other 
callings,  and  they  press  the  question  with  merciless  in- 
sistence. In  what  is  he  an  expert  ?  In  the  war  this  matter 
of  expertness  was  put  to  the  proof.  The  padre  was  tra- 
ditionally regarded  by  a  certain  type  of  officer  as  a  kind 
of  extra  man,  expert  only  in  the  arrangement  and  con- 
ducting of  parade  services,  and  by  no  means  sure  to  be 
expert  even  in  that.  Everything  else  required  exact 
knowledge  and  technical  training  of  a  highly  specialised 
kind.  His  job  alone  could  be  performed  by  anybody  who 
liked  to  try  it,  at  the  first  attempt.  As  a  serious  contribu- 
tor to  the  real  business  of  the  war  he  simply  did  not  count. 
This  way  of  thinking  was  a  direct  challenge  to  every  man 
of  spirit  among  the  regular  or  temporary  army  chaplains, 
and  it  was  not  long  before  they  had  refuted  and  silenced 

1  Marriage,  p.  260. 

^Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  p.  104. 

99 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

it.  No  class  of  officer  along  the  whole  line  can  claim 
more  indisputably  to  have  "made  good"  than  they.  They 
made  a  place  for  themselves  among  the  urgent  necessities 
of  the  war,  and  they  won  the  respect  of  officers  and  men 
alike,  as  experts  in  the  conception  and  execution  of  their 
duties. 

In  contrasting  the  work  of  the  clergyman  with  that  of 
the  expert  scientist  or  of  the  technically  skilled  workman, 
one  obvious  consideration  is  apt  to  be  overlooked.  The 
antithesis  to  expertness  is  discursiveness,  and  it  is  be- 
cause the  work  and  thought  of  most  of  us  have  to  be 
scattered  over  a  wide  field  of  human  interests  that  we 
are  supposed  necessarily  to  be  inexpert.  In  the  case  of 
the  majority,  that  is  necessarily  true,  and  we  need  not 
be  ashamed  frankly  to  admit  it.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  indeed  sets  apart  men  who  are  found  to  have 
highly  specialised  powers,  for  work  along  restricted  lines. 
They  are  thus  enabled  to  devote  all  their  attention  to 
these,  and  become  expert  preachers,  missioners,  organ- 
isers, or  diplomatists.  It  is  a  wise  arrangement,  and  we 
of  the  Protestant  churches  would  find  it  to  our  advantage 
to  adopt  it  far  more  widely  than  we  do.  It  has,  how- 
ever, the  undeniable  disadvantage,  that  the  various  de- 
partments of  ministerial  work  afford  each  other  mutual 
aid.  The  preacher  who  is  a  mere  preacher  will  never 
preach  so  well  as  he  would  if  he  mingled  pastorally  with 
the  lives  of  men.  Indeed,  even  the  narrowest  conception 
of  the  office  of  the  Christian  ministry  must  include  a  large 
variety  of  responsibilities  and  duties.  Religion  is  not  an 
exact  science  in  the  same  sense  that  chemistry  is.  The 
minister's  work,  therefore,  cannot  be  expert  in  the  same 
sense  as  a  chemist's  work  can  be,  nor  indeed  in  the  same 
sense  as  a  gardener's  (to  quote  Stevenson's  example). 
In  St.  Paul's  striking  phrase,  "all  sorts  of  wisdom"  are 
required  for  preaching.^ 

1  Colossians  i.  28. 

100 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

Yet  there  is  such  a  thing  as  expertness  for  the  ordinary 
preacher.  Just  as  there  are  those  in  medicine  who  special- 
ise and  are  consultants  in  general  practice,  so  the  preacher 
can  and  ought  to  know  his  business  in  a  way  which  may 
be  accurately  described  as  expert.  If  he  applies  his 
thought  studiously  to  the  various  departments  of  his  work, 
and  if  he  relates  those  various  departments  to  each  other ; 
if  he  states  clearly  to  himself  what  the  objects  of  his 
preaching  are,  and  devotes  his  powers  to  the  securing  of 
these  objects ;  he  will  have  the  fullest  right  tc^  the  ,nafwe  of 
expert,  although  he  be  no  specialist  in  any  arife  'branch 
of  his  profession.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  snch  j.?  the casej 
and  while  we  feel  about  some  preachers  that  they  do  not 
know  their  business,  we  feel  equally  strongly  about  others 
that  they  do.  But  it  is  very  difficult  to  express  this  in 
rules  of  direction.  There  is  not,  and  there  never  can  be, 
any  complete  or  satisfactory  manual  of  preaching.  Some 
hints  may  be  given  to  one  from  the  experience  of  another, 
and  a  few  rules  may  be  laid  down.  But  such  rules  must 
be  elementary  at  the  best.  The  teacher  of  homiletics 
will  guard  men  from  mistaken  methods,  and  train  them 
for  average  work  as  preachers.  But  he  who  would  scale 
the  heights  or  break  new  paths  in  unexplored  territory 
must  do  it  for  himself  with  little  aid  from  any  instructor. 
The  achievement  of  excellence  of  any  high  grade  in 
preaching  must  be  the  adventure  of  the  man's  own  in- 
dividual genius,  and  in  reaching  it  the  preacher  may  break 
every  rule  that  can  be  laid  down.  Yet  here  let  me  add 
this  word  of  warning.  Such  departure  from  rules  is  not 
for  the  beginner,  and  can  be  nothing  but  a  danger  and  a 
snare  to  him.  "There  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
between  departure  from  recognised  rules  by  one  who  has 
learned  to  obey  them,  and  neglect  of  them  through  want 
of  training,  or  want  of  skill,  or  want  of  understanding. 
Before  you  can  be  eccentric  you  must  know  where  the 
circle  is."^ 

1  Ellen  Terry,  Life,  p.  91. 

101 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

The  "art  of  preaching"  is  a  phrase  which  makes  me 
shudder.  Sometimes  in  proposing  a  vote  of  thanks  after 
an  address,  in  which  one  has  poured  forth  his  soul  in  un- 
reserved and  passionate  appeal,  a  kindly  chairman  will 
speak  of  one's  words  as  "eloquent."  No  epithet — I  had 
almost  said  epitaph — could  possibly  grieve  one  more,  or 
brand  one's  earnestness  with  the  mark  of  failure.  The 
only  consolation  is  that  the  chairman  may  have  had  a 
limited  vocabulary,  and  may  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
usin^***"el()quent"  to  characterise  all  kinds  of  praiseworthy 
discourse.  'If  the  word  was  really  meant,  the  speaker 
!fia3'-'we:l  examine  himself:  for  any  preaching  which 
rhakes  'upon  ^riy  man  the  general  impression  chiefly  of 
eloquence,  is  bad  preaching.  Preaching  is  indeed  an  art, 
but  of  all  arts  it  is  the  one  of  which  the  maxim  is  most 
true,  Summa  ars  celare  artem.  Any  art  that  there  is  in 
preaching  can  only  be  tolerable  as  a  means  to  an  end,  and 
the  test  of  it  is  the  measure  in  which  the  means  is  con- 
cealed and  the  end  made  prominent.  "Show  me  your 
muscles,"  says  Epictetus.  "Here  are  my  dumb-bells," 
replies  the  athlete.  "Begone  with  your  dumb-bells,"  re- 
plies Epictetus ;  "what  I  want  to  see  is  not  them  but  their 
effect."^  Thus  "the  teacher  must  begin  where  he  must 
end,  with  practice."^  Otherwise  his  utterances  will  not  be 
"the  spontaneous  outflow  of  a  prophet's  soul,  but  the  ar- 
tistic periods  of  a  rhetorician."^ 

Conscious  art  in  preaching  is  doubly  dangerous.  It  is 
dangerous  to  the  preacher.  It  has  been  said  of  Lord  El- 
lenborough  that  he  had  "a  sincere  love  for  justice,  but  a 
stronger  love  for  antithesis."*  Such  a  state  of  mind  in 
the  preacher  obviously  distracts  his  attention  from  the 
main  purpose  of  his  work.     We  have  enumerated  three 

1  Hatch,  Hibbert  Lectures,  vi. 

2  Ibid.  vii. 
2  Ibid.  xii. 

*  Justin  M'Carthy,  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  iii.  14. 

102 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

chief  objects  of  preaching,  viz.  Testimony,  Education, 
and  Appeal.  But  none  of  these  three  objects  can  be 
rightly  attained,  so  long  as  the  preacher  is  also  aiming  at 
creating  an  impression  by  his  art.  That  can  never  be  a 
legitimate  object  of  preaching,  and  it  has  ruined  many 
an  able  sermon.  It  reaches  its  climax  in  the  endeavour 
to  compose  and  deliver  an  epoch-making  sermon.  We 
have  all  known  the  minister  who  has  preached  one  great 
sermon  and  has  never  recovered  from  it.  Dr.  Joseph 
Parker  used  to  pour  scorn  upon  all  such  endeavours,  tell- 
ing us  in  his  own  inimitable  way  to  regard  our  epoch- 
making  sermon  as  "the  epoch-making  rat  that  ate  the 
malt  that  lay  in  the  house  that  Jack  built." 

But  sermons  which  reveal  the  art  with  which  they  are 
composed  are  equally  dangerous  with  respect  to  those 
who  listen  to  them.  It  is  of  first  importance  to  remind 
ourselves  of  the  reasons  why  many  of  our  hearers  come 
to  hear  us,  of  the  things  they  want  to  hear,  and  the  causes 
which  lead  them  to  regard  certain  men  as  "popular 
preachers."  Hatch's  Lectures  are  full  of  the  most  star- 
tling suggestion  as  to  this,  in  their  descriptions  of  those 
long  sermons  of  the  sophists  that  were  delivered  for  the 
sake  of  the  applause  they  drew,  and  of  preachers  who 
gave  men  not  what  was  good  for  them  but  what  they  liked 
to  hear.  He  reaches  his  climax  in  the  account  of  Gregory 
Nazianzus'  greatest  sermon,  where  his  audience  was  so 
wedded  to  its  search  for  art  and  not  for  conviction,  that 
he  broke  forth  in  despair  in  his  closing  sentence,  "Fare- 
well— ye  are  nearly  all  of  you  unfaithful  to  God,"  which 
the  congregation  greeted  with  a  final  outburst  of  ap- 
plause.^ The  late  Principal  Rainy  gives  a  searching  list 
of  things  which  draw  unchristian  men  to  Christianity: 
"What  draws  to  Christianity  those  who  prove  to  be  ene- 
mies of  the  Cross  of  Christ?"  and  he  goes  on  to  quote 
"family    and   social    influences,"    "intellectual    interest," 

'^Hihhert  Lectures,  iv. 

103 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

"the  sense  of  truth  and  reality,"  "devout  emotions,"  "ven- 
eration for  some  features  of  the  Christian  character," 
"the  very  goodness  of  Christian  truth  and  hfe."  "Who 
has  not  known  kindly,  serviceable  men,  hanging  about  the 
churches  with  a  real  predilection  for  the  suburban  life  of 
Zion — men  regarding  whom  it  made  the  heart  sore  to 
form  any  adverse  judgment,  and  yet  men  whose  life 
seemed  just  to  omit  the  Cross  of  Christ?"^  An  older 
preacher,  Mr.  Stewart  of  Aberdeen,  delivered  a  remarka- 
ble sermon  in  which  he  exposed  the  same  dangerous  ele- 
ment in  congregations  as  it  existed  in  Early  Victorian 
days.  The  text  is  Ezekiel  xxxiii.  32,  "And,  lo,  thou  art 
unto  them  as  a  very  lovely  song  of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant 
voice,  and  can  play  well  on  an  instrument :  for  they  hear 
thy  words,  but  they  do  them  not."  He  points  out  that  as 
an  object,  in  itself  disagreeable,  becomes  pleasing  on 
canvas,  so  unpleasant  truths  may  be  made  interesting  by 
choice  language  and  expression,  by  play  of  imagination, 
description  of  natural  objects,  trains  of  reasoning  and 
analysis,  calm  and  well-arranged  statements  suitable  to 
cultivated  minds — even  by  pathos,  sincerity,  and  earnest- 
ness. "Like  a  jurist  who  in  prison  studies  in  mute  ad- 
miration the  system  of  laws  by  which  he  is  to  die ;  like  a 
chemist  who  with  professional  interest,  ardour,  and  de- 
light, examines  the  properties  of  the  poison  that  is  killing 
him";  so  does  such  a  hearer  systematise  terrific  truths 
with  all  the  complacency  of  a  child  building  bricks.  "Hav- 
ing entrenched  himself  in  the  habit  of  abstract  thinking 
and  of  viewing  everything  apart  from  its  relations  to  him- 
self, the  sinner  soon  acquires  a  taste  for  strong  statements 
and  even  harrowing  representations  and  appeals,  and  will 
modify  and  adapt  your  message,  and  then  approve  it  as  a 
faithful  saying."^  One  must  remember  also,  that  besides 
the  ungodly  and  hypocritical,  there  are  those  surfeited 

1  Commentary  on  Philippians,  285,  286. 

2  Stewart,  Remains. 

104 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

people  who  have,  through  long  habit,  developed  the  pro- 
fessional sermon-taster's  craving  for  religious  meetings 
and  addresses,  and  who  are  out  not  for  edification,  but 
for  criticism  and  comparison  with  other  preaching.  With 
all  this  in  view,  one  turns  to  the  art  of  preaching  rather 
sadly,  to  remind  oneself  that  that  art  must  not  be  in- 
terpreted as  pleasing  the  audience  or  pandering  to  its 
tastes,  but  of  educating  it  and  striking  home  direct  blows 
upon  its  conscience;  and  that  the  first  advice  to  give  to 
anyone  who  aspires  to  the  holy  ministry  must  be,  Do  not 
try  to  be  a  popular  preacher,  try  only  to  be  an  honest  man. 
I  think  John  Bunyan  must  have  felt  something  of  the 
dangers  which  we  have  been  describing  when  he  wrote 
the  last  pages  of  the  First  Part  of  his  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
He  had  brought  the  pilgrimage  to  a  successful  and  ex- 
quisite close.  As  a  work  of  art  nothing  could  have  added 
to  its  perfection.  Then  he  deliberately  ruined  it  by  the 
final  passage  about  the  fate  of  Ignorance.  As  mere  lit- 
erary art,  nothing  could  possibly  have  been  worse  or  more 
reprehensible.  Had  the  writer,  we  wonder,  perceived 
that  his  art  was  so  perfect  as  to  be  in  danger  of  defeating 
its  own  object?  By  tour  de  force  he  recalled  his 
readers  to  the  tremendous  message  in  whose  service  the 
art  had  been  employed,  and  summoned  their  consciences 
to  attention  by  putting  his  foot  through  his  newly  finished 
canvas. 

All  this  has  been  directed  against  conscious  or  apparent 
art  in  preaching.  Further,  it  may  be  added  that,  even  as 
regards  technique,  there  is  no  one  universal  model  to 
which  all  preaching  must  conform.  It  wall  differ  accord- 
ing to  the  temperament,  the  taste,  and  the  gifts  of  the 
preacher.  Being  the  voice  of  man's  free  spirit  in  one 
of  its  exalted  moods,  it  cannot  be  reduced  to  any  set  of 
technical  rules.  Even  in  painting,  all  that  can  be  taught 
is  in  the  region  of  technique.  Beyond  that  the  artist 
must  be  left  free  for  self-expression,  and  must  **let  his 

105 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

ghost  him  lead/'  I  have  Hngered  upon  this  and  repeated 
it  because  of  its  extreme  importance.  Any  preaching 
which  is  wholly  constructed  upon  rules  is  preaching  in 
irons;  but  ''where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is 
liberty." 

Yet  rules  there  are,  and  if  a  man  is  going  to  preach  at 
all,  it  is  better  that  he  should  preach  well,  even  in  the 
technical  sense.  The  technique  of  preaching  is  given  to 
no  man  by  instinct,  and  the  preacher  who  will  in  the  end 
most  daringly  depart  from  such  rules  as  there  are,  must 
serve  a  diligent  apprenticeship  in  the  drudgery  of  learn- 
ing and  obeying  them.  We  shall  now  turn  to  the  con- 
sideration of  some  of  these. 

The  first  matter  to  be  considered  is  of  course  the  prepa- 
ration of  material  out  of  which  sermons  may  be  con- 
structed as  the  occasions  for  them  arise.  That  such  stores 
of  material  should  be  prepared,  can  admit  of  no  question. 
He  who  makes  no  preparation,  gives  up  habits  of  study, 
and  comes  each  week  to  the  task  of  gathering  a  sufficient 
number  of  thoughts  about  a  text  to  form  a  sermon,  is  on 
the  sure  way  to  failure.  The  scribe  whom  Christ  praises 
brings  forth  things  new  and  old,  but  he  brings  them  forth 
out  of  his  treasury.  The  scribe  without  a  treasury  will 
find  the  production  either  of  old  things  or  new  a  very 
embarrassing  business.  He  will  soon  break  his  spirit  in 
the  weekly  raking  of  commentaries  and  scrambling  among 
half-remembered  ideas,  until  the  preparation  of  sermons 
becomes  for  him  a  nightmare  rather  than  a  delight. 

There  is,  of  course,  his  own  experience  to  draw  from, 
but  crude  experiences  form  a  very  insufficient  basis  for 
preaching.  What  is  wanted  is  experience  playing  upon 
the  material  of  ideas  which  are  to  be  presented  to  the 
congregation  in  connection  with  the  subject  for  the  day. 
These  ideas  must  be  gathered  in  reading  and  in  study. 
As  to  what  a  man  should  read,  that  is  a  question  which 
will  depend  very  much  upon  his  particular  type  of  mind. 

106 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

Some  men  will  choose  the  great  classics  for  their  in- 
tellectual food,  others  will  feel  impelled  to  keep  in  touch 
with  the  contemporary  output  of  new  literature,  so  far 
as  that  is  within  their  power.  Each  is  necessary  and 
valuable,  and  it  will  be  well  for  all  of  us  to  aim  at  a  com- 
bination of  the  two.  Besides  one's  serious  reading,  old 
and  new,  there  will  be  a  certain  amount  of  lighter  read- 
ing done  for  relaxation,  and  even  that  may  be  an  aid  to 
preaching.  It  will  keep  us  in  touch  with  the  literature 
which  is  the  staple  reading  of  many  in  our  congrega- 
tions, and  it  will  often  supply  ideas,  suggestions,  and  il- 
lustrations which  will  enrich  our  sermon  work. 

It  is  well  worth  while  to  consider  seriously  what  books 
we  should  read.  His  message  will  be  given  to  a  man, 
in  part  at  least,  by  his  studies ;  and  still  more  it  will  take 
its  general  tone,  style,  and  character  from  these.  Above 
all,  of  course,  there  is  the  Bible  itself,  and  no  preacher 
can  without  peril  neglect  its  systematic  study.  But  in  an 
age  like  this  we  need  to  read  much  else  besides.  "No 
man,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  ''who  knows  nothing  else, 
knows  even  his  Bible."^  But  as  God's  messenger  comes 
forth  from  his  Bible  to  his  other  books,  it  seems  to 
me  as  if  all  the  mighty  spirits  who  wrote  the  Bible  were 
following  him  with  their  dreadful  searching  eyes,  to  see 
what  books  he  will  supplement  them  with.  Such  books 
should  be  in  themselves  great  and  vital.  Further,  they 
should  be  suggestive  books,  quickening  his  own  mind  to 
activity  rather  than  merely  supplying  him  with  passages 
or  thoughts  which  he  may  borrow.  The  standard  clas- 
sics of  literature,  the  great  commentaries,  the  living 
books  of  theology  and  religion — these  are  the  stuff  for  in- 
spiration. To  neglect  these,  and  simply  sit  down  and  copy 
the  division  of  a  text  into  heads,  out  of  some  of  the 
volumes  known  as  "Aids  to  Preachers,"  is  to  sell  your 
birthright.    If  your  reading  has  been  vital,  you  can  divide 

1  Culture  and  Anarchy,  ch.  v. 

107 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

the  text  far  better  for  yourselves,  if  you  will  take  the 
pains  to  try.  I  would  even  venture  to  warn  you  against 
the  undue  use  of  volumes  of  other  men's  sermons.  These 
may  become  a  temptation,  and  some  students  have  made 
shipwreck  of  their  character,  and  have  even  thrown  away 
their  power  of  honest  work,  by  yielding  to  that  tempta- 
tion. Printed  sermons  may  be  useful  if  they  are  read 
after,  not  before,  you  have  constructed  the  framework  of 
your  own  discourse.  It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  they 
teach  the  art  of  preaching  to  any  great  extent.  If  any  of 
you  find  that  you  have  been  relying  upon  them  too-  much,  I 
would  advise  you  to  sell  three-quarters  of  your  stock 
of  other  men's  sermons,  and  to  buy  books. 

While  it  is  imperative,  so  far  as  we  can  manage  it,  to 
read  systematically,  yet  the  reading  of  most  of  us  will 
necessarily  be  to  a  considerable  extent  desultory.  But 
orderly  minds  may  acquire  the  habit  of  the  unconscious 
formation  of  a  system  of  thought  for  themselves.  At  the 
centre  of  a  man's  thinking  there  will  be  a  certain  num- 
ber of  commanding  ideas,  each  of  which  will  form  a  nu- 
cleus round  which  other  ideas  will  gather.  These  groups 
of  ideas  will  be  constantly  being  enriched  by  new  thoughts 
or  aspects  found  casually  in  general  reading.  Thus  it  will 
happen  that  while  the  vastly  larger  part  of  such  read- 
ing will  fall  away  and  be  entirely  forgotten,  those  par- 
ticles of  thought  which  have  related  themselves  to  the 
permanent  groups  within  the  mind  of  the  reader  will  be 
captured  and  retained.  I  hardly  know  any  book  worthy 
of  the  name,  whether  religious  or  secular,  fact  or  fiction, 
from  which  one  or  two  such  enriching  fragments  may 
not  be  gathered  as  you  pass.  It  may  be  added  as  noticea- 
ble, that  the  great  preachers  have  generally  been  students 
of  history,  and  that  this  must  ever  be  an  appropriate  field 
for  the  interpreter  of  human  life.  To  get  at  some  sort 
of  a  philosophy  of  history  is  to  see  the  Hfe  of  the  heart 
of  man  writ  large,  and  to  understand  something  of  the 

108 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

ways  of  God  with  men.  And  if  any  really  great  poet 
shall  make  you  his  own,  you  will  find  that  he  will  do  not  a 
little  of  your  best  preaching  for  you. 

The  next  question  that  arises  is  that  of  retaining  the 
constantly  accumulating  stores  of  material,  and  especially 
of  retaining  them  in  such  a  way  as  that  they  shall  be 
available  for  use  on  appropriate  occasions.  For  this, 
many  devices  have  been  invented,  such  as  the  use  of  inter- 
leaved Bibles,  or  (as  in  the  case  of  Scrivener's  Synop- 
sis Evangelica)  Bibles  whose  text  is  printed  in  one  corner 
of  a  wide  page,  leaving  abundant  room  for  annotations. 
In  Todd's  Students'  Manual,  which  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  one  of  the  most  familiar  of 
American  books  in  Scotland,  the  most  elaborate  directions 
are  given  for  the  construction  of  a  Commonplace  Book 
and  an  Index  Rerum.  The  former  is  an  indexed  volume 
in  which  excerpts  from  books  are  written  down.  The 
latter  is  an  index  of  subjects,  showing  the  passages  in 
books  where  references  to  those  subjects  may  be  found. 
These  are  mechanical  devices,  which,  if  persisted  in 
through  a  lifetime,  would  probably  put  blinkers  upon 
whatever  Pegasus  of  free  spirit  and  vital  thinking  one 
rode.  Yet  they  may  afford  valuable  training,  for  a  time 
at  least.  Many  of  us  began  the  system  in  our  youth,  but 
in  later  days  abandoned  it  for  the  much  simpler  one 
of  unindexed  notebooks  of  written  extracts  (fewer  in 
number  as  life  grew  busier)  and  references.  In  using 
such  notebooks  it  often  became  apparent  that  certain  sub- 
jects had  accumulated  a  considerable  number  of  extracts 
and  references.  Such  subjects  were  transferred  to  a  new 
series  of  notebooks,  each  one  (ledger-like)  having  a  page 
to  itself,  and  the  scattered  references  and  extracts  were 
thus  gathered  in  their  appropriate  pages.  Such  methods 
have  been  found  helpful  by  some  of  us,  although  the 
usefulness  of  any  particular  method  must  depend  on  the 
habits  of  the  man  who  uses  it.    The  main  things  to  re- 

109 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

member  are,  that  there  must  be  behind  every  preacher 
who  would  preserve  any  opulence  of  thought  or  variety 
of  interest  in  his  preaching,  some  such  treasury  into 
which  he  may  deposit  the  gains  of  his  reading  and  think- 
ing, and,  that  he  will  probably  have  to  adopt  some  me- 
chanical apparatus  for  making  the  stores  of  his  treasury 
available.  But  let  him  beware  of  allowing  any  such 
mechanism  to  enter  too  much  into  his  methods  of  work. 
When  it  becomes  the  master,  it  is  wholly  deadening  and 
to  be  avoided;  only  when  it  is  the  helpful  slave  of  his 
own  free  and  forceful  spirit  is  it  useful.  And  besides  all 
this,  there  will  be  times  when  subjects  and  messages  will 
suddenly  spring  upon  a  preacher's  mind,  and  find  for 
themselves  embodiment  from  the  unconscious  or  sub- 
conscious material  stored  there,  without  any  mechanical 
aids  whatever.  Such  sermons  will  probably  be  his  most 
inspiring  and  impressive  utterances,  while  those  of  the 
former  more  laborious  kind  may  be  the  more  instructive. 
It  is  in  sermon-building  that  the  art  of  preaching  ought 
to  be  most  carefully  followed.  The  first  concern  here  is 
the  relation  between  the  masses  of  material  and  the  ser- 
mon which  is  to  express  these.  For  the  sermon  must 
assimilate  these  and  reproduce  them  in  another  form 
suited  to  its  own  proper  ends.  It  has  been  wisely  said 
that  the  preacher  should  never  directly  preach  apologetics, 
but  should  preach  a  message  based  upon  apologetics. 
That  saying  is  of  wider  application  than  the  one  depart- 
ment to  which  it  refers.  It  is  not  enough  to  arrange  and 
classify  the  various  truths  which  it  is  intended  that  the 
sermon  shall  express.  These  must  undergo  an  internal 
change,  and  become  parts  of  a  living  whole,  a  new  organ 
ism,  which  is  the  creation  of  the  preacher  and  the  ex< 
pression  of  his  personality.  If  this  mternal  change  doe 
not  take  place,  the  sermon,  composed  of  accumulated 
ideas,  becomes  pemmican  rather  than  ordinary  and  di- 
gestible food.     In  using  such  collections,  it  is  well  to  be 

110 


il 

1 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

ruthless  in  cutting  off  all  surplusage  of  ideas  not  directly 
relevant,  and  keeping  them  for  other  occasions. 

The  very  word  "sermon-building"  at  once  suggests 
structure.  No  defect  in  a  sermon  can  be  so  serious  as  the 
want  of  this.  Into  a  Highland  vestry,  as  the  minister  was 
preparing  to  enter  the  pulpit,  there  broke  an  unfortunate 
divinity  student  who  had  showed  remarkable  signs  of 
genius,  but  whose  studies  had  unhinged  his  reason,  and 
left  him  a  harmless  but  incurable  lunatic.  Without  invi- 
tation he  exclaimed,  "Let  us  pray.  O  Lord,  give  us 
power,  give  us  point,  give  us  brevity.  Amen.''  There 
was  much  wisdom  in  his  madness.  Power  is  indeed  the 
gift  of  God.  Brevity  is  in  the  preacher's  option.  But 
point  is  the  quality  which  can  be  reached  only  by  attention 
to  structure  in  sermon-building.  Without  it,  the  sermon 
will  be  but  a  discursive  meditation  or  medley.  Such  a 
meditation  may  on  rare  occasions  be  edifying,  when  it  is 
desired  to  lead  the  people  upon  a  placid  wandering  among 
religious  thoughts.  But,  as  a  rule,  discursiveness  in  a  ser- 
mon is  a  dangerous  temptation.  It  is  the  last  infirmity 
of  nimble  minds.  It  has  robbed  many  a  sermon  of  its  ef- 
fectiveness, by  depriving  it  of  point.  By  structure  is 
meant  the  conception  in  the  preacher's  mind  of  his  ser- 
mon as  a  whole,  whose  parts  are  arranged  in  proper 
balance  and  subordination,  with  a  view  to  leaving  a  cer- 
tain planned  impression  upon  mind  or  conscience.  The 
framework  should  be  logically  constructed,  and  the  sub- 
sequent filling  in  of  the  framework  should  preserve,  and 
never  obliterate  or  confuse,  the  structural  unity  and  pur- 
pose of  the  whole.  Of  course  the  sermon -builder  must 
beware  of  adopting  one,  or  a  very  few,  structural  models, 
and  building  all  his  sermons  on  these  plans.  In  the  days 
when  "heads"  were  considered  essential  to  sermon-build- 
ing, it  was  common  to  find  men  falling  into  this  error. 
First  came  the  Introduction;  then  some  such  triplet 
of  categories  as  Source,  Operation,  and  Consequences; 

111 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

followed  by  the  inevitable  Application,  and  then  an  end. 
Such  uniformity  of  structure  must  inevitably  result  in 
lack  of  interest  and  freshness.  Even  in  the  matter  of 
heads  there  is  no  divine  law  for  or  against.  In  some 
discourses  they  may  be  necessary  and  highly  valuable 
methods  of  expressing  the  line  of  thought,  and  imprinting 
it  upon  the  memory  of  the  hearers.  In  others  they  may 
interrupt  and  break  its  continuity.  Even  in  the  connect- 
ing of  the  sermon  with  its  text  there  is  room  for  variety. 
The  best  method  must  be  determined  by  the  object  of  the 
sermon.  If  it  be  educational,  it  will  generally  be  found 
best  to  begin  with  the  context  and  exegesis  of  the  text, 
and  to  pass  on  from  these  to  its  application  to  life  in 
various  connections,  ultimately  leading  up  to  present-day 
facts  and  experiences  by  way  of  illustration  and  applica- 
tion. If,  however,  the  main  object  be  appeal,  it  will  often 
be  more  effective  to  begin  with  data  of  experience  which 
have  no  apparent  connection  with  the  text  at  all,  and  to 
show  a  deeper  meaning  in  these,  leading  back  to  the  text 
in  the  end  and  thus  surprising  the  hearers  with  the  re- 
ligious significance  of  the  ordinary  facts  of  their  lives. 
Thus  the  structure  of  the  sermon  may  vary  in  many  dif- 
ferent ways,  but  the  main  point  is  that  the  sermon  must 
have  structure.  It  is  true  that  only  one  or  two  of  the 
hearers  may  recognise  the  presence  or  absence  of  struc- 
ture for  what  it  is  ;  but  they  will  all  recognise  the  presence 
or  absence  of  point,  and  point  is  the  effect  of  structure. 

One  thing  more  has  to  be  considered  in  sermon-build- 
ing. Preachers  are  often  accused  of  exaggeration  and 
one-sidedness  in  their  presentation  of  truth.  No  doubt 
the  criticism  is  in  some  cases  just.  The  more  earnest  and 
enthusiastic  a  preacher  is  in  his  sense  of  the  urgency 
and  necessity  for  the  utterance  of  certain  truths,  the  more 
he  must  be  on  his  guard  to  acquaint  himself  with  all  that 
can  be  said  on  the  other  side,  and  to  treat  the  contrary 
opinion  fairly.    The  pew  has  no  right  of  reply,  and  any 

113 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

sense  of  unfairness  will  challenge  opposition  in  those 
whose  point  of  view  is  different.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  at  its  longest  a  sermon  is 
but  a  very  short  opportunity  for  the  complete  discussion 
of  any  great  subject,  and  it  is  better  to  aim,  in  any  one 
sermon,  at  leaving  an  unmistakable  impression,  than  on 
presenting  with  equal  fullness  both  sides  of  a  case.  He 
who  strives  for  perfect  balance  of  this  sort  in  each  ser- 
mon, will  find  that  his  preaching  has  lost  its  cutting  edge, 
and  will  have  little  effect  on  the  consciences  of  men.  And, 
after  all,  this  sermon  or  that  is  not  the  only  sermon  you 
will  preach.  In  other  sermons  you  will  have  other  op- 
portunities of  presenting  the  other  side  of  the  question 
you  are  dealing  with;  and  it  is  certainly  more  effective 
to  gain  the  just  balance  over  the  whole  field  of  your 
ministry  than  to  insist  upon  it  in  each  separate  discourse. 
As  to  exaggeration,  while  that  may  become  a  habit  so  per- 
nicious as  altogether  to  undermine  the  preacher's  sense 
of  veracity,  and  to  prejudice  his  congregation's  confidence 
in  his  truthfulness,  it  may  also  be  used  with  legitimate 
and  telling  effect.  All  hyperbole  is  exaggeration,  and  Je- 
sus Himself  made  very  free  use  of  hyperbole.  Turner 
learned  to  paint  the  sun,  by  carefully  graduating  and  ex- 
aggerating the  darker  tones  of  the  objects  on  which  it 
shone ;  and  a  similar  process  is  often  called  for  in  our  at- 
tempt to  express  the  blinding  lights  and  ultra-violet  shad- 
ows of  the  spiritual  and  moral  world.  Besides,  the  true 
aim  of  any  one  sermon  is  to  be  suggestive  rather  than 
exhaustive  in  its  treatment  of  its  subject.  One  great  ob- 
ject of  preaching  is  to  startle  men  and  women  into  think- 
ing, to  suggest  even  by  opposition,  to  stimulate  thought 
even  by  exaggeration.  There  is  all  the  difference  in  the 
world  between  the  exaggeration  which  is  the  habit  of  an 
untruthful  mind,  and  that  which  is  the  art  of  a  skillful 
master  of  persuasive  speech. 

Reference  must  be  made  to  style  and  delivery  as  es- 

113 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

sential  elements  in  the  technique  of  preaching.  In  these 
lectures  such  subjects  can  only  receive  a  passing  glance, 
nor  would  it  be  possible  to  lay  down  many  rules  even  if 
there  were  larger  opportunity.  For  one  thing,  there  are 
fashions  in  preaching — even  local  fashions — which  make 
the  ideals  of  style  and  delivery,  in  part  at  least,  geographi- 
cally determined.  Each  country  develops  tastes  of  its  own 
in  such  matters,  and  it  would  be  absurd  to  attempt  to  im- 
pose upon  any  land  the  canons  of  another.  We  shall 
not  therefore  linger  long  in  this  region.  It  belongs 
properly  to  the  classrooms  of  rhetoric  and  elocution,  and 
you  may  likely  enough  be  impatient  of  it  here.  Yet  what 
would  you?  It  is  irrational,  and  an  affront  to  the  majesty 
of  the  human  spirit,  that  all  its  wonderful  powers  should 
be  at  the  mercy  of  a  microbe  or  a  clot  of  blood,  yet  such 
is  the  way  in  which  the  world  is  made.  A  surgeon  may 
be  learned  in  all  the  literature  of  his  subject,  and  expert 
in  all  its  practice;  yet  if  he  be  careless  with  his  instru- 
ments, all  that  erudition  will  not  save  him  from  disaster. 
It  is  positively  maddening  to  think  of  the  waste  and  loss 
to  the  Church  and  the  world,  which  are  due  to  precisely 
similar  causes  in  the  ministry.  Men  despise  these  matters 
of  technique  as  trivial  in  comparison  with  the  greatness 
of  their  thoughts  and  the  urgency  of  their  message,  and 
by  doing  so  they  condemn  themeslves  to  a  career  of  deep- 
ening failure,  and  deprive  the  world  alike  of  their  mes- 
sage and  their  thoughts. 

Style  is  concerned  with  the  manner,  as  contrasted  with 
the  matter,  the  form  rather  than  the  essence,  of  a  man's 
utterance.  It  is  true  that  style  as  much  as  matter — per- 
haps even  more  than  matter — is  given  by  a  man's  own  per- 
sonality, of  which  it  is  or  ought  to  be  the  natural  ex- 
pression. Those,  for  instance,  who  blame  the  ruggedness 
of  Thomas  Carlyle's  style,  might  as  well  call  Julius  Caesar 
pedantic  for  having  written  his  books  in  Latin.  Carlyle 
was  simply  expressing  himself,  and  his  style  was  exactly 

114 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

characteristic  of  his  thought.  Now  if  this  were  the  case 
always,  if  every  man's  thought  clothed  itself  according 
to  its  nature,  there  would  be  no  need  whatever  for  trea- 
tises on  style.  Unfortunately,  that  is  not  what  happens 
in  many  cases.  Men  adopt  all  sorts  of  styles  foreign  alike 
to  their  personalities  and  to  their  messages.  The  evil 
of  this  is  not  only  that  the  force  of  the  message  is  dead- 
ened, and  its  effect  weakened,  by  the  unsuitable  style  in 
which  it  is  expressed.  There  is  a  strong  reaction  from 
style  upon  matter,  a  direct  influence  which  the  manner 
of  expression  exercises  upon  the  thought  expressed. 

Now  the  one  thing  above  all  others  to  be  desired  in 
style  for  preaching  is  naturalness.  As  we  shall  see  later 
on,  the  power  of  preaching  lies  largely  in  its  expression 
of  the  personality  of  the  preacher.  But  the  fullness  and 
freedom  of  that  expression  must  depend  largely  on  the 
style  he  adopts.  The  clothes  which  a  man  wears  have 
much  to  do  with  the  impression  he  makes  upon  society. 
Fantastic  clothes  are  only  legitimate  for  fantastic  people : 
for  others  they  are  a  serious  disadvantage.  A  well- 
dressed  man  is  not  necessarily  one  who  has  paid  much  for 
his  clothes,  or  who  has  selected  brilliant  garments.  He 
only  is  well  dressed  whose  clothes  fit  him,  and  are  such 
that  the  impression  which  they  give  of  the  man  is  char- 
acteristic of  his  personality.  It  is  something  of  this  kind 
at  which  we  ought  to  aim  in  style  for  preaching.  A  lady 
who  has  moved  for  many  years  in  the  circle  of  the  best 
orators  of  the  Church  and  Parliament  of  Britain,  discuss- 
ing this  subject,  lamented  that  so  many  preachers  who  in 
private  life  are  interesting  and  vital  conversationalists, 
are  so  different  in  the  pulpit.  "The  moment  they  begin 
to  preach,  or  even  to  read  the  scripture,  they  become 
formal,  dead,  and  unreal.  Oh,  tell  them  to  be  natural." 
A  sermon  is  not  an  exhibition  in  ore  rotundo;  it  is  a 
glorified  conversation,  in  which  a  man  expresses  himself 
as  in  familiar  speech,  but  to  a  larger  company.    The  most 

115 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

perfect  models  of  naturalness  in  style  are  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  and  the  Authorised  Version  of  the  English 
Bible,  especially  the  recorded  sayings  of  Jesus  Christ.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  it  was  the  greatness,  not  the  pov- 
erty of  His  spirit,  which  kept  Christ  from  striving  and 
crying.  In  the  simplest  sentences  that  He  uttered  He 
somehow  revealed  Himself,  and  communicated  not  only 
His  doctrine  but  His  spirit.  If  we  can  achieve  something 
of  this  simplicity  and  naturalness,  we  shall  have  done 
much  to  remove  the  sense  of  unreality  which  has  been  so 
widely  felt.  The  war  has  brought  the  general  spirit  of 
man  back  to  simplicity  and  naturalness,  as  we  have  seen. 
No  preaching  can  now  be  regarded  as  appropriate  which 
does  not  manifest  these  qualities. 

It  is  easy  to  say  these  things,  and  I  think  they  will 
be  generally  accepted  as  true;  but  it  is  very  difficult  to 
achieve  naturalness,  or  to  maintain  it  in  preaching.  Even 
the  effort  after  it  may  itself  become  an  affectation,  and 
more  is  required  of  us  than  any  such  conscious  and  ap- 
parent effort.  Walter  Pater  has  shown  us  the  way  here. 
"With  Flaubert,  the  search,  the  unwearied  research,  was 
not  for  the  smooth  or  winsome  or  forcible  word  as  such, 
.  .  .  but  quite  simply  and  honestly,  for  the  word's  adjust- 
ment to  its  meaning."^  This  is  of  the  deepest  interest, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  ethics  as  well  as  of  rhetoric. 
Long  ago  Longinus  declared  that  literary  merit  is  de- 
pendent on  deep  moral  causes.  The  task  which  Pater  and 
Flaubert  impose  upon  the  preacher  or  writer,  that  of  ex- 
amining his  thoughts  until  he  understands  exactly  what 
it  is  that  he  desires  to  express,  and  then  searching  for 
the  exact  words  in  which  to  express  it,  is  one  of  the  high- 
est moral  exercises  imaginable,  for  it  is  indeed  simply 
the  search  for  truth  in  the  inward  parts.  Mr.  Hichens 
describes  one  of  his  characters  as  "a  man  who  had  an  in- 
stinctive hatred  of  heroics.    His  taste  revolted  from  them 

^  Appreciations,  Style. 

116 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

as  it  revolted  from  violence  in  literature.  They  seemed 
to  him  a  coarseness,  a  crudity  of  the  soul,  and  almost 
inevitably  linked  with  secret  falseness."^  Heroics  are  not- 
truth.  Neither  is  the  detonating  word,  however  astonish- 
ing and  arresting.  Neither  is  even  the  fervid  word. 
Fervour  counts  for  much  in  preaching;  and  yet,  as  the 
late  Principal  Rainy  used  to  say,  "How  very  easy  it  is 
to  be  earnest !"  Imagination,  exaggeration,  emotion,  fer- 
vour— I  do  not  discount  these,  nor  deny  their  legitimacy, 
nor  under-estimate  their  value.^  Yet  "it  is  only  the  per- 
fect word  that  avails  to  carry  the  message  of  one  genera- 
tion on  into  the  next."  In  the  use  of  any  of  the  other 
kinds  of  speech  one  has  to  exercise  self-restraint  lest 
they  confuse  the  issue  and  call  attention  to  themselves 
rather  than  to  the  message  they  are  there  to  express.  We 
should  use  them  sparingly  and  keep  them  well  in  hand. 
Avoid  the  frequent  repetition  of  a  word,  especially  if  the 
word  be  unusual ;  still  more  of  a  phrase,  especially  if  the 
phrase  be  clever.  We  spoke  of  structure  in  sermon- 
building.  In  all  kinds  of  architecture  there  is  the  choice 
of  two  aims.  Either  the  main  aim  of  the  architect  is 
for  structural  truth  or  it  is  for  decorative  effect.  In  ser- 
mon-building the  former  aim  should  be  an  absolute  con- 
science to  the  preacher  and  the  latter  a  crime.  Our  work 
is  to  interpret  God  and  life  to  men  reasonably,  and  mainly 
by  means  of  clear  thought.  If  that  be  forgotten,  all  else 
is  vain.  •  Pater  is  right  in  warning  us  that  our  search 
should  not  be  for  the  smooth,  or  winsome,  or  even  for 

1  The  Call  of  the  Blood,  xix. 

2  Herbert  Spencer's  style  warns  us  against  the  opposite  ex- 
treme by  starving  itself  in  its  horror  of  floridity.  He  "utterly 
undervalues  what  he  regards  as  superfluous  words.  Attrac- 
tiveness of  style  is  part  of  the  instrumentality  by  which  a  great 
writer  or  speaker  accomplishes  his  ends.  If  a  man  would  con- 
vince, he  must  not  disdain  the  arts  by  which  people  can  be  in- 
duced to  listen."  (Justin  M'Carthy,  A  History  of  Our  Own 
Times,  Ixvii.) 

117 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

the  forcible  word ;  but  for  the  word,  the  one  word,  that 
will  exactly  express  our  thought  in  the  exact  meaning 
we  wish  it  to  bear.  Of  course  a  preacher  will  at  times 
get  excited.  He  may  employ  eloquence,  exaggeration, 
scorn,  sarcasm,  poetic  fancy,  or  tearful  pleading.  But  it 
will  be  well  for  him  if  he  keep  his  self-possession  suffi- 
ciently to  say  the  thing  he  has  to  say.  The  main  concern 
is  to  be  intelligible.  If  we  must  be  profound  or  violent, 
at  least  let  us  be  so  "with  clear  terms,  not  with  obscure 
terms."^ 

Naturalness  does  not  come  naturally  to  any  public 
speaker  except  a  very  few.  Many  speakers  think  they 
have  it  as  a  gift  from  nature,  but  we  are  very  apt  to  de- 
ceive ourselves  about  our  natural  gifts.  Things  which 
we  habitually  do,  of  course  seem  natural  to  us,  but  to 
others  they  often  seem  otherwise.  There  are  indeed  some 
considerations  of  a  purely  external  kind,  which  are  well 
worthy  of  the  preacher's  attention.  These  do  not  reach 
the  heart  of  the  matter,  but,  so  far  as  they  go,  they  cer- 
tainly help  the  impression  of  naturalness.  There  are  three 
points  especially  to  which  special  attention  is  required. 
One  of  these  is  the  use  of  quotations.  Nothing  lends 
distinction  to  a  sermon  more  than  a  thoroughly  apt  quo- 
tation, but  the  tendency  is  to  quote  too  much,  and  so  to 
spoil  the  simplicity  of  the  effort.  The  quotation  must  al- 
ways be  for  the  sake  of  the  preaching,  and  not  the  preach- 
ing for  the  sake  of  the  quotation.  And  even  thoroughly 
relevant  quotations  must  not  be  allowed  to  overload  the 
sermon.  It  is  safe  to  take  it  as  a  universal  rule  that 
most  quotations  interest  the  speaker  more  than  they  do 
his  audience,  and  that  the  mere  fact  that  a  quotation  con- 

^  The  late  Principal  Rainy  was  a  master  in  this  art.  It  was  a 
noticeable  feature  both  of  his  speaking  and  of  his  writing,  that 
no  matter  how  abstruse  his  subject  might  be,  or  how  involved 
and  even  obscure  his  sentences,  he  concluded  them  with  a  series 
of  short  Saxon  simple  words  that  rang  out  upon  the  ear  like 
blows  of  a  hammer  upon  an  anvil. 

118 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

firms  or  illustrates  what  he  is  trying  to  say  does  not  prove 
that  it  will  be  found  either  necessary  or  helpful  to  his 
discourse.  The  function  of  quotations  is  to  call  in  a 
higher  or  recognised  authority  for  confirmation  of  one's 
statement,  or  to  repeat  and  enrich  that  statement  by 
another  man's  expression  of  it  in  choice  or  striking 
language.  These  criteria  should  be  unsparingly  applied 
in  doubtful  cases. 

Another  point  is  the  use  of  illustration  and  anecdote. 
I  need  not  remind  you  of  the  immense  value  of  this,  in 
sustaining  interest,  breaking  the  strain  of  continuous  pur- 
suit of  a  theme  without  losing  the  thread  of  the  discourse, 
and  driving  home  the  point  illustrated.  But  the  story 
needs  to  be  well  told,  and  every  preacher  should  give 
earnest  attention  and  deliberate  study  to  the  art  of  telling 
a  story.  It  is  a  thing  which  everybody  supposes  himself 
to  be  able  to  do,  and  which  surprisingly  few  can  really 
do  well.  On  the  other  hand,  the  effect  of  illustration  will 
depend  to  a  considerable  extent  upon  the  sparing  use  of 
it.  When  a  sermon  degenerates  into  a  string  of  anecdotes 
it  is  lost.  As  in  the  case  of  quotation,  so  here,  no  an- 
ecdote should  ever  be  told  for  the  sake  of  the  anecdote, 
but  only  because  it  forwards  the  object  of  the  sermon. 
It  must  never  come  upon  the  congregation  as  a  matter 
dragged  in  or  alien.  Only  when  it  is  felt  to  be  inevitable 
is  it  quite  legitimate.  It  is  necessary  to  cultivate  fastidi- 
ousness in  this  respect,  and  to  err  rather  on  the  side  of 
rejection  than  acceptance  of  doubtful  illustrations. 

The  third  point  calls  for  a  still  more  strict  fastidi- 
ousness. Humour  is  admissible  in  preaching,  and  it  may 
be  one  of  the  finest  and  most  penetrating  swords  of  the 
Spirit.  It  has  been  said  of  battles  that  a  general  may  be 
sure  of  victory  if  he  uses  an  unexpected  weapon;  and, 
for  the  preacher,  humour  is  often  such  a  weapon.  Yet 
an  awful  doom  awaits  that  preacher  who  allows  his  sense 
of  humour  to  master  him,  and  to  leave  itself  upon  the 

119 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

memory  of  the  congregation  as  the  main  impression  of  his 
work.  Smartness  of  any  kind  is  out  of  place  in  preach- 
ing.^ Smartness  is  trick-preaching,  and  brings  the  level 
down  from  that  of  the  chariot  racer  to  that  of  the  circus 
horse.  All  stagey  cleverness,  all  intentional  accidents  and 
deliberately  prepared  impromptus,  are  to  be  condemned. 
Our  work  will  at  its  best  convince  us  sadly  enough  that 
St.  Paul  was  right  when  he  spoke  of  the  foolishness  of 
preaching;  there  is  little  need  to  make  it  more  foolish 
than  it  is. 

In  these  matters  the  labour  to  attain  naturalness  need 
not  be  very  great.  But  the  central  effort  after  the  exact 
understanding  of  the  thought  we  wish  to  express,  and  the 
search  for  the  exact  word  that  will  express  it,  is  a  labori- 
ous one  indeed.  M.  Anatole  France,  who  has  perhaps 
as  good  a  right  to  pronounce  on  style  as  any  living  man, 
has  told  us  in  The  Garden  of  Epicurus  that  "A  simple 
style  is  like  white  light.  It  is  complex,  but  does  not  seem 
so.  .  .  .  In  language  true  simplicity,  the  simplicity  that 
is  good  and  desirable,  is  only  apparent;  and  it  results 
solely  from  the  fine  co-ordination  and  sovereign  economy 
of  the  several  parts  of  the  whole."^ 

1  Smartness  in  advertised  titles  of  sermons  is  an  abomination 
against  which  I  would  fain  warn  you.  It  is  cheap  to  begin 
with,  and  brands  a  man  as  a  vender  of  cheap  wares.  And,  besides 
that,  there  are  but  few  preachers  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  able 
to  keep  it  up.  You  begin  with  advertising  as  your  subject  "The 
Prodigal  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Fatted  Calf,"  or  "The 
submarine  experiences  of  Jonah":  you  end  with  advertising 
"A  good  man,"  or  "A  noble  race."  As  if  any  self-respecting 
man  would  cross  the  street  to  hear  you  on  the  latter  subjects, 
or  would  not  flee  into  another  city  rather  than  hear  you  on  the 
former. 

2  There  is  a  very  wonderful  book,  known  to  many  of  us,  and 
which  ought  to  have  a  place  beside  Cruden's  Concordance  on 
every  preacher's  desk,  which  will  be  of  priceless  value  in  finding 
the  "exact  word."  I  refer  to  Roget's  Thesaurus.  Its  arrange- 
ment of  all  possible  subjects  is  a  masterpiece  of  psychology, 
and  is  itself  a  liberal  education.  Its  wealth  of  synonyms  and 
cognate  or  related  words  is  practically  exhaustive. 

120 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

The  late  Dr.  John  Watson  (Ian  Maclaren)  has  said 
that  much  attention  has  been  bestowed  upon  the  Genesis 
of  a  sermon,  but  far  too  little  on  its  Exodus.  On  the 
problems  of  delivery  we  cannot  enter,  but  a  few  words 
are  necessary  in  so  far  as  this  also  helps  to  determine  the 
naturalness,  and  to  give  the  impression  of  reality,  in 
preaching.  Everybody  knows  that  much  excellent  matter, 
expressed  in  perfectly  satisfactory  style,  is  wasted  for 
want  of  right  delivery.  You  may  compose  a  very  natural 
discourse,  and  then  render  it  unnatural  by  the  way  in 
which  you  preach  it. 

There  are  three  standard  ways  of  delivering  sermons, 
viz.  reading,  preaching  from  notes  more  or  less  full,  com- 
mitting the  sermon  to  heart  and  repeating  it  from  mem- 
ory. From  every  point  of  view  the  last  method  is  to  be 
condemned.  It  involves  an  enormous  waste  of  time,  it 
burdens  the  memory  injuriously,  and  it  is  difficult  to  be- 
lieve that  it  can  in  any  case  fail  to  destroy  the  naturalness, 
and  so  the  reality,  of  the  spoken  word.  Reading,  even 
verbatim  reading,  is  a  legitimate  method,  and  has  been 
used  with  splendid  effect  by  many  of  the  greatest  preach- 
ers. It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  in  order  to 
make  it  powerful  as  preaching,  the  reading  of  a  discourse 
will  always  require  severe  effort  and  attention.  Notes, 
whether  taken  into  the  pulpit  or  left  at  home,  seem  to  offer 
the  fullest  opportunity  for  self-expression  to  the  preacher. 
He  brings  only  his  structure  of  thought,  and  finds  his 
language  in  the  hearts  and  eyes  of  his  congregation.  His 
sermon  will  doubtless  be  a  rougher-edged  and  less  literary 
production  than  that  of  him  who  writes  it  out  at  leisure 
beforehand,  but  there  may  be  a  positive  advantage  in 
that.  Our  aim  is  not  literary  polish  or  completeness,  but 
direct  hits  upon  men's  conscience,  intellect,  and  heart; 
and  the  rougher  edge  may  give  the  deeper  wound.  At 
the  beginning  of  a  ministry  it  is  in  every  case  wise  to 
write  out  at  least  one  sermon  per  week.    Later  on,  when 

121 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

further  advanced  in  the  art  of  preaching,  notes  may  be 
substituted  in  part  or  altogether. 

As  to  the  detailed  points  in  elocution,  these  must  be  left 
to  the  specialised  teaching  of  the  elocution  class.  It  is 
a  study  which  every  wise  student  will  take  with  the  ut- 
most seriousness.  Use  all  its  training,  and  conceal  your 
use  of  it  all ;  for  every  mark  of  the  chisel  is  a  flaw  upon 
the  structure.  But  whatever  else  you  learn  from  your 
teachers  as  to  the  delivery  of  sermons,  let  that  also  be 
natural  and  simple,  free  from  mannerisms  and  from 
portentousness.  Take  the  sermon  as  essentially  a  con- 
versation with  your  hearers,  and  converse  with  them,  in- 
stead of  either  bellowing  at  them  or  wailing  to  them. 
Above  all,  be  good-natured  in  manner  and  in  tone.  There 
is  a  ^'curate  contra  mundum''  way  of  preaching  which 
gives  the  impression  of  a  young  man  standing  up  alone 
on  behalf  of  eternal  truth,  and  at  the  risk  of  his  life  de- 
fying every  member  of  the  congregation  to  his  or  her 
face,  even  when  he  is  uttering  sentiments  which  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  any  sensible  person  would  dispute.  It 
is  wiser  and  more  effective  to  hold  your  welcome  for 
granted,  to  take  your  congregation  into  your  confidence, 
and  speak  to  them  as  to  people  with  whom  you  are  on 
friendly  terms. 

This  lecture  has  been  largely  occupied  with  external 
matters  of  technique.  But  apart  from  these  there  are 
internal  requirements  for  the  expert.  All  art  is  es- 
sentially self-expression,  the  outgoing  of  a  man's  own 
personality  upon  others.  Of  no  art  is  this  so  true  as  of 
the  art  of  preaching.  The  deepest  secret  of  its  power, 
humanly  speaking,  is  the  letting  loose  of  the  preacher's 
personality  upon  his  hearers.  To  be  an  expert,  therefore, 
one  must  know  how  to  release  one's  personality.  This  is 
partly  included  in  what  has  been  said  concerning  natural- 
ness. It  involves  the  breaking  down  of  the  barriers 
of  shyness  and  reserve;  the  power  of  understanding  and 

122 


THE  PREACHER  AS  EXPERT 

sympathising  with  men,  and  of  making  them  feel  that 
you  do  so ;  the  will  and  the  power  of  giving  oneself  away. 
But  it  involves  something  more  than  this.  If  the  preacher 
is  to  employ  his  personality  in  this  way,  he  must  make 
sure  that  his  personality  is  such  as. to  have  a  good  effect 
upon  those  on  whom  it  comes  forth.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  birthmark  of  frivolity  is  upon  those  who  are  con- 
verted by  a  certain  class  of  sensational  preachers.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that  every  preacher  does  leave 
some  sort  of  birthmark  upon  his  converts.  '  They  bear 
the  impress  of  his  personality  alike  in  their  moral  charac- 
ter and  their  spiritual  life,  whether  it  be  of  hardness  or 
of  sentimentality,  of  robust  austerity  or  of  generous  and 
broad  humanity. 

If  this  be  so,  it  is  evident  that  there  must  be  included 
among  the  preparations  demanded  of  the  expert  preacher, 
a  searching  and  strenuous  dealing  with  his  own  soul.  In 
the  particular  matters  of  moral  character  and  spiritual 
consecration  we  shall  consider  this  in  a  later  lecture. 
Meanwhile,  in  general,  let  us  remember  that  he  whose 
main  instrument  is  to  be  his  own  personality  must  be 
an  expert  in  personality.  In  so  far  as  his  preaching  aims 
at  testimony  and  education,  he  must  qualify  himself  for 
it  by  severe  honesty  of  intellect,  which  refuses  to  testify 
or  to  teach  what  he  himself  does  not  thoroughly  know. 
The  lazy  student  who  has  not  braced  himself  to  such  self- 
denying  study  as  is  necessary  to  pass  his  examinations, 
will  need  to  change  his  habits  before  he  can  attain  to  any 
valid  authority  in  testifying  or  in  educating.  In  so  far 
as  his  preaching  is  of  the  nature  of  appeal,  he  must  school 
himself  out  of  all  spiritual  idleness  and  self-indulgence, 
lest  he  should  be  found  a  hypocrite  in  demanding  from 
his  congregation  a  higher  level  of  spiritual  life  than  he  is 
prepared  himself  to  live  upon.  I  am  not  demanding  of  all 
preachers  that  they  shall  be  either  intellectual  or  spiritual 
geniuses,  but  only  that  they  shall  be  honest  preachers  be- 

123 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

cause  they  are  honest  men.  Here  is  the  claim  of  reality 
in  preaching  at  its  very  central  point,  reality  in  the  per- 
sonality which  they  send  out  upon  those  who  hear  them. 
And  a  further  discipline  is  involved  in  this  connection. 
Two  things  are  admirable — a  genius  soaring  high  in 
flights  beyond  the  wing  of  all  but  a  few  preachers,  and  a 
plain  man  doing  ordinary  work  well  and  discovering  the 
particular  kind  of  ordinary  work  which  he  is  best  fitted 
to  perform.  The  one  intolerable  thing  is  a  plain  man 
mistaking  vanity  and  ambition  for  genius,  and  attempting 
flights  beyond  his  reach.  So,  for  the  expert  in  personality, 
a  certain  aa-K-qa-i^  is  indispensable,  a  personal  self-disci- 
pline, which  will  reveal  to  him  his  powers  and  his  limita- 
tions, his  individual  task  and  message,  and  will  prepare 
him  for  all  demands  which  his  ministry  may  make  upon 
him. 


124 


LECTURE  VI 

The  Preacher  as  Statesman 

THE  views  which  were  advanced  in  a  previous  lec- 
ture upon  the  necessity  of  founding  .our  preach- 
ing upon  experience,  may  naturally  seem  to  in- 
dicate that  the  preacher  is  concerned  with  personal  rather 
than  with  public  questions.  It  is  not  denied  that  a  min- 
istry which  moves  along  purely  individualistic  lines  may 
be  a  fruitful  and  a  powerful  ministry.  The  classical  in- 
stance is  that  of  Archbishop  Leighton.  "When  minister 
of  Newbattle,  he  was  publicly  reprimanded  at  a  meeting 
of  Synod  for  not  'preaching  up  the  times/  and  on  asking 
who  did  so,  and  being  answered,  *A11  the  brethren,'  he 
rejoined,  Then  if  all  of  you  preach  up  the  times,  you  may 
surely  allow  one  poor  brother  to  preach  up  Christ  and 
eternity.'  "^  Such  preaching  may  not  only  save  individ- 
ual souls,  but  may  even  do  public  service.  The  strongest 
social  power  is  personal  influence,  and  the  general  move- 
ment of  the  world  has  been  advanced  by  ministries  and 
movements  which  confined  themselves  to  dealing  with 
individual  consciences.  The  Kingdom  of  God,  whose 
coming  is  without  observation,  begins  within  the  souls 
of  Christian  men  and  women,  and  extends  itself  outward 
from  them  upon  society.  There  are  some  preachers  who 
simply  cannot  do  the  public  work  of  ordinary  times  ef- 
fectively ;  and,  as  Dr.  Dykes  says,  "there  is  room  and  need 
enough  for  ministers  of  both  sorts. "^ 

1  Butler,  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Robert  Leighton,  ch.  viii. 

2  Dykes,  The  Christian  Minister  and  his  Duties,  in  which  the 
chapter  upon  Citizenship  gives  an  admirable  discussion  of  this 
whole  question. 

125 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

Yet  there  are  many  men  who,  though  they  may  prefer 
the  individualistic  appeal,  and  can  only  by  a  great  effort 
bring  themselves  to  attack  the  social  and  national  prob- 
lems of  their  time,  yet  can  do  this  effectively  if  they  make 
the  effort,  and  these  will  undoubtedly  be  the  best  helpers 
of  their  age.  Leighton's  trenchant  reply  is  perhaps  hardly 
quite  fair,  and  the  Synod  may  have  had  something  to 
say  for  itself.  It  had  the  memory  of  John  Knox  behind 
it,  and  it  may  have  felt  a  not  unnatural  sense  of  loss 
in  being  deprived  of  the  help  of  so  powerful  a  spirit  as 
Leighton's,  while  facing  the  acute  and  embittered  prob- 
lems of  its  time.  Yet  many  of  those  questions  were  petty, 
and  it  is  only  issues  which  are  big  enough — really  great 
and  of  permanent  importance — that  demand  the  larger 
prophetic  message  which  carries  men  beyond  the  concerns 
of  their  own  and  their  hearers'  individual  souls  into  a 
wider  world. 

The  group  consciousness  is  necessarily  different  from 
the  individual  consciousness,  and  has  different  moral 
and  spiritual  values,  which  are  specially  applicable  to  so- 
cial life.  Nay  further,  the  individual  can  possess  but  a 
maimed  and  incomplete  life  if  he  lives  only  unto  himself. 
There  is  the  psychology  of  the  individual  and  there  is  the 
psychology  of  the  crowd.  But  the  crowd  is  made  up  of 
individuals,  and  not  one  of  them  can  justly  escape  from 
his  place  in  the  crowd  and  his  obligations  to  its  larger  life. 
The  greater  part  of  the  individual's  life — its  perplexities, 
its  duties,  and  its  sins — arises  in  connection  with  his  re- 
lations to  others,  and  so  to  society.  Each  of  these  re- 
lations extends  his  true  personality,  whose  complete  defi- 
nition includes  the  place  he  occupies  in  each  of  the 
widening  circles  in  which  he  necessarily  lives.  "Two 
men,  a  woman  and  a  loaf" — that  is  a  true  epitome  of  the 
social  problem.  To  preach  to  the  men  without  any  refer- 
ence to  the  woman  or  the  loaf  must  surely  be  defective 

126 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

preaching.  You  cannot  preach  to  the  individual  rightly 
unless  you  include  his  relations  with  society.  If  this  be 
so,  it  is  not  enough  to  concentrate  your  preaching  wholly 
upon  the  individual,  and  to  hope  that  through  him  you 
will  ultimately  form  and  guide  a  public  conscience.  So- 
cial preaching  also  is  demanded,  bearing  directly  upon  so- 
cial, national,  and  international  themes. 

One  has  only  to  glance  back  at  the  great  preachers  of 
the  past  to  realise  how  true  this  is.  The  prophets  of  the 
Old  Testament  are  shining  examples.  If  we  were  to  cut 
out  from  their  writings  all  the  wider  outlook,  we  should 
lose  many  more  passages  of  Holy  Writ  than  any  higher 
critic  has  ever  excised.  Jesus  Christ  Himself  founded  by 
His  preaching  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Augustine,  Savon- 
arola, Knox — to  take  but  three  names  out  of  hundreds — 
have  matched  themselves  against  the  crying  public  ques- 
tions of  their  times.  How  could  John  Knox  be  detached 
from  the  development  of  political  ideals  and  the  history 
of  Scotland  ?  He  "made  Scotland  over  again  in  his  own 
image."  The  pulpit  has,  upon  occasions,  shown  itself 
capable  of  making  or  preventing  wars,  of  righting  social 
wrongs,  and  of  establishing  good  government  in  many 
lands. 

Yet  there  have  always  been  those  who  would  exclude 
the  Church  from  all  intermeddling  with  statesmanship  and 
secular  affairs.  Melancthon,  in  his  commentary  on  2 
Timothy  ii.  4,  says,  "So  he  wishes  the  minister  of  the 
gospel  to  serve  in  his  own  vocation  unreservedly,  and  not 
to  engage  in  outside  affairs,  in  political  management.  Let 
not  the  minister  of  the  gospel  have  one  foot  in  the  temple 
and  the  other  in  the  curia/'  To  few  readers  will  this 
appear  a  convincing  exegesis  of  the  text,  "No  man  that 
warreth  entangleth  himself  with  the  affairs  of  this  life." 
Yet  many  will  justly  remind  us  of  the  dangers  which 
beset  preaching  when  it  ceases  to  be  individualistic  and 
begins  to  deal  in  public  affairs.    Whatever  a  man's  own 

127 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

political  views  may  be,  he  is  not  called  to  be  the  minister 
either  of  the  Republicans  or  the  Democrats,  either  of  the 
Conservatives  or  the  Liberals  in  his  congregation,  as  an 
agent  in  party  propaganda.  The  unfairness  of  any  such 
course  is  manifest  in  an  assembly  where  there  is  no  right 
of  reply.  The  questions  which  divide  the  members  of 
any  congregation  into  different  political  parties  are  open 
questions,  on  which  it  is  admitted  that  men  of  the  highest 
principle  and  integrity  may  support  either  of  the  rival 
sides.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  will  be  found  that  most 
men  claim  the  right  to  do  their  political  thinking  and  vot- 
ing for  themselves,  and  to  choose  for  their  leaders  in  these 
departments  others  than  their  religious  guides. 

A  second  danger  lies  in  the  deadening  influence  of  poli- 
tics upon  preaching,  which  draws  its  vitality  from  its  in- 
timate contact  with  the  living  personalities  of  individual 
men  and  women.  It  has  been  said  with  much  insight 
concerning  European  politics  that  "its  appreciation,  and 
much  more  its  direction,  depend  upon  a  certain  high  and 
cold  imagination."  Pater,  writing  of  Coleridge,  asserts 
that  "Good  political  poetry — political  poetry  that  shall  be 
permanently  moving — can,  perhaps,  only  be  written  on 
motives  which,  for  those  they  concern,  have  ceased  to  be 
open  questions,  and  are  really  beyond  argument."^  No 
doubt  when  Melancthon  wrote  his  commentary  quoted 
above,  he  had  in  mind  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  the  lam- 
entably deadening  and  secularising  effect  of  its  secular 
pretensions  upon  Christianity.  It  is  a  danger  which 
threatens  all  State  churches,  and  which  is  equally  appar- 
ent in  those  churches  which  devote  too  much  of  their  own 
energies  to  the  attempt  to  end  the  State  connection  of 
other  churches.  The  theology  of  Ritschl  has  suffered 
much  in  living  appeal  from  its  doctrine,  both  in  regard 
to  Justification  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  that  these 
refer  primarily  to  nations   rather  than   to   individuals. 

^Appreciations:  Coleridge. 

128 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

Germany  herself  owes  most  of  the  worst  features  which 
the  war  has  brought  to  light,  to  her  habit  of  thinking  in 
terms  of  nations  rather  than  of  individuals,  and  subordi- 
nating the  interests  and  even  the  conscience  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  supreme  ends  of  the  State.  It  has  often 
been  brought  as  an  accusation  against  the  Church  that  she 
was  not  able  to  interfere  effectively,  and  to  forbid  and 
prevent  the  Great  War  from  taking  place.  But  to  this 
the  apt  rejoinder  has  been  made,  that,  if  the  Church  had 
power  enough  to  dictate  terms  of  justice  and'  to  enforce 
them  upon  the  nations,  such  power  would  in  other  direc- 
tions prove  an  evil  which  more  than  counterbalanced 
any  good  that  she  might  accomplish  in  a  specific  case  such 
as  the  late  war.  It  must  be  confessed  that  the  history  of 
the  Church  in  the  centuries  that  succeed  the  reign  of  Con- 
stantine  gives  justification  to  this  opinion.  And  yet,  in 
such  a  time  as  the  present,  the  Church  is  bound  to  take 
risks — even  the  gravest  risks.  The  sheer  necessity  for  the 
Christianising  of  modern  public  life  is  so  great  and  press- 
ing, that  it  were  worth  the  loss  of  some  individuaHstic 
fervour,  even  if  it  were  admitted  that  such  loss  is  inevi- 
table. At  such  an  hour  the  words  of  Christ  are  applicable 
to  the  Church  as  much  as  to  the  individual,  "He  that 
will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it.'' 

By  far  the  greatest  danger  in  this  whole  department 
is  that  of  inexpert  preaching  upon  highly  specialised  and 
complex  questions.  Of  Montaigne  it  was  said  that  he 
"loved  listening  to  folks,  however  humble,  who  knew  their 
subject" ;  and,  in  dealing  with  public  questions,  the  first 
necessity  is  to  know  one's  subject.  Here  there  is  no  room 
for  safe  and  pious  platitudes ;  if  we  speak  at  all  we  must 
say  something.  It  is  a  part  of  the  preacher's  work  which 
he  must  do  well  or  leave  alone.  He  who  preaches  author- 
itatively about  burning  questions,  with  inaccurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts,  or  of  the  bearing  of  the  facts,  is  taking 
the  surest  way  to  discredit  not  only  his  own  ministry,  but 

129 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

the  influence  of  the  pulpit  as  a  whole.  In  this  respect 
preaching  on  public  questions  of  political  or  social  signifi- 
cance is  widely  different  from  individualistic  religious 
appeal.  The  object  of  the  latter  is  to  rouse  a  man's  con- 
science, imagination,  and  emotions  so  as  to  lead  him 
towards  definite  acts  of  faith  and  changes  of  character. 
For  this,  many  methods  are  admissible  which  are  illegit- 
imate in  handling  social  questions.  Exaggerated  or  high- 
flown  language  may  help  in  the  one  case,  while  it  may 
mislead  in  the  other.  The  style  of  address  which  is  fitting 
and  valuable  in  a  popular  evangelist  will,  if  cultivated 
in  politics  or  economics,  produce  a  mere  demagogue. 
A  realistic  illustration — and  realists  are  seldom  faithful 
to  the  whole  facts  of  the  case — may  be  a  powerful  and 
entirely  legitimate  means  of  persuasion  in  the  one  case, 
while  in  the  other  it  may  be  a  gross  perversion  of  the 
truth. 

Many  instances  might  be  quoted  to  show  the  danger  of 
inexpert  pronouncements  on  public  questions.  Dante's 
denouncement  of  usury  was  not  to  be  wondered  at  in  the 
financial  conditions  of  the  Florence  of  his  day,  but  he 
who  would  maintain  Dante's  views  as  a  condemnation 
of  all  interest  paid  on  loans  in  modern  commerce  would 
accomplish  nothing  but  to  show  how  far  he  is  from  the 
regions  in  which  he  is  a  safe  guide.  Even  the  wise  John 
Bunyan  sometimes  strays  beyond  the  limits  of  his  gen- 
eral sagacity  when  he  is  off  his  ground.  It  is  not  un- 
common to  hear  complaints  from  Christian  men  of  the 
trial  it  is  to  them  to  have  to  listen  to  crude  and  one-sided 
presentations  of  such  problems  as  capital  and  labour, 
strikes,  wages,  etc.  They  may  have  spent  a  lifetime  in 
seeking  after  economic  justice,  while  the  preacher  may 
have  taken  his  information  from  a  newspaper  paragraph 
or  from  the  conversation  of  an  acquaintance  who  had  a 
personal  grievance.  Even  if  the  minister  has  at  one  time 
been  for  a  year  a  bank  clerk,  his  training  will  hardly 

130 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

qualify  him  to  preach  as  an  authority  on  questions  of  high 
finance. 

Altogether,  this  is  a  very  serious  and  a  very  difficult 
problem.  No  one  who  has  any  knowledge  of  the  innu- 
merable duties  and  details  of  the  ministerial  life — its 
study,  its  infinite  variety  of  pastoral  calls  upon  his  time 
and  thought,  its  very  large  correspondence,  its  demand  for 
service  beyond  his  congregation — will  fail  to  see  that  the 
average  minister  cannot  possibly  be  an  expert  in  social 
and  political  science,  or  keep  abreast  of  its  literature  and 
new  developments.  Yet  an  expert  he  must  be  if  he  is 
to  form  public  opinion,  or  to  hold  his  own  with  those  who 
are  devoting  their  whole  time  to  the  study  of  such  ques- 
tions. The  solution  will  probably  be,  that  a  certain  pro- 
portion of  the  ministers  in  every  Church  will  be  found 
to  have  a  natural  aptitude  for  such  studies,  and  those 
of  them  whose  knowledge  approves  itself  as  sound  will 
be  welcomed  as  experts  and  specialists,  and  granted  im- 
munity from  some  other  parts  of  their  work  in  considera- 
tion of  the  value  of  their  contributions  to  this.  For  the 
rest,  it  is  of  first  necessity  that  a  preacher  shall  keep 
strictly  within  the  limits  of  his  accurate  knowledge.  Al- 
though he  will  never  attempt  to  take  the  position  of  an 
authority  upon  the  whole  detail  of  the  problems  of  public 
life,  yet  he  may  attain  a  clear  conception  of  the  principles 
of  ethics  and  religion  in  their  application  to  the  main 
controversies  of  his  day.  To  this  extent  he  may  be  ac- 
cepted as  a  trustworthy  guide,  and  may  render  public 
service  of  an  important  order. 

These  are  the  dangers,  and  they  are  formidable.  Yet 
they  are  not  warnings  against  preaching  upon  public 
topics,  but  only  against  doing  it  badly  and  blunderingly. 
They  will  certainly  increase  the  strenuousness  of  the 
preacher's  life  and  labour,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  he 
should  not  face  them.  Dangers  are  a  challenge  to  the 
brave,  a  deterrent  only  to  the  cowardly  and  the  lazy. 

131 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

And  in  a  time  like  this  it  is  cowardly  to  refuse  to  deal 
with  facts  and  questions  upon  which  the  entire  intelligent 
population  is  exercising  its  thought.  The  Church  is  a 
public  institution,  and  as  such  she  has  no  alternative  but 
to  stand  for  certain  principles,  and  against  certain  other 
principles,  in  public  life.  Principal  Garvie,  discussing  the 
present  intellectual  situation,  writes:  "A  new  demand  is 
thus  made  upon  religion.  Can  it  not  only  assure  a  man 
of  his  individual  salvation,  but  also  secure  for  mankind 
its  social  regeneration?  The  answer  that  the  Christian 
Churches  seem  inclined  to  give,  that  it  is  only  by  individ- 
ual salvation  that  social  regeneration  can  be  reached,  is 
received  by  very  many  with  evident  impatience.  Are 
there  no  Christian  ideas  which  can  be  used  as  organising 
principles,  are  there  no  Christian  motives  that  may  be 
applied  as  formative  forces  in  bringing  about  the  social 
changes  that  are  so  urgently  needed?  The  question  is 
being  pressed  upon  Christian  theology;  and  if  it  is  not 
satisfactorily  answered,  the  social  enthusiasm  of  the  age, 
which  might  thus  be  brought  into  alliance  with  Christian 
devotion,  may  in  its  disappointment  and  disgust  separate 
itself  from  and  oppose  itself  to  religion."^ 

There  is  a  mistaken  notion  that  Jesus  was  purely  indi- 
vidualist in  His  outlook  and  teaching.  This  misapprehen- 
sion arises  largely  from  the  fact  that  on  one  occasion  He 
refused  to  give  decision  in  a  dispute  between  two  brothers 
regarding  the  division  of  their  inheritance.  That  is  one 
of  the  texts  which  must  be  very  tired,  and  it  would  be 
merciful  to  give  it  a  rest.  Because  Jesus  declined  to  save 
a  man  the  expense  of  consulting  a  lawyer,  it  does  not  fol- 
low that  He  looked  on  dispassionately  while  Pharisees 
were  devouring  widows'  houses.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Jesus  has  divided  thousands  of  inheritances,  which  but 
for  Him  would  fraudulently  have  gone  past  the  rightful 
heirs.     And  the  Church  of  Jesus  is  bound  to  take  cog- 

1  The  Ritschlian  Theology,  i.  S. 

132 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

nisance  of  such  things.  By  her  influence  on  men,  and 
still  more  perhaps  on  women,  she  is  constantly  creating 
and  moulding  public  opinion  for  or  against  the  policies 
canvassed  at  the  time.  Benjamin  Kidd^  and  Owen 
Wister^  have  both  pointed  out  that  the  sentiment  of  a 
great  nation  can  be  completely  changed  within  a  genera- 
tion. The  most  potent  instrument  of  such  change  is  un- 
doubtedly Zeit-geist — that  subtle  fashion  of  thinking 
which  becomes  the  mental  and  spiritual  atmosphere  which 
no  human  being  can  avoid  breathing.  In  the  case  of 
Germany  the  new  and  disastrous  Zeit-geist  was  deliber- 
ately cultivated  by  State-arranged  education.  But  be- 
sides the  education  given  in  the  schools,  there  are  other 
influences  which  help  to  determine  the  direction  in  which 
the  Zeit-geist  shall  move ;  and  the  pulpit  still  remains  one 
of  the  most  powerful  of  these.  Let  the  preacher,  then, 
fearlessly  accept  the  position  of  a  propagandist  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Let  him  deal  not  in  personalities 
but  in  principles.  Let  him  preach  not  as  a  partisan  but  as 
a  Christian  statesman.  Even  if  he  blunder  now  and  then, 
it  is  better  to  take  the  risk.  It  is  safer  in  the  end  to 
blunder  occasionally  in  the  attempt  to  fulfil  the  high 
responsibilities  of  his  office,  than  to  make  his  ministry 
one  chronic  blunder  by  refusing  to  face  these  responsi- 
bilities. 

These  things  were  always  true,  but,  in  the  fierce  light 
which  the  war  has  thrown  upon  all  such  questions,  their 
truth  was"  tragically  intensified  and  charged  with  vastly 
heavier  responsibility.  In  the  time  of  such  a  war  as  this, 
the  opportunities  became  infinitely  more  rich  and  potent, 
and  the  refusal  of  them  more  fraught  with  doom,  than 
they  had  ever  been  before.  For  this,  as  I  have  already 
reminded  you,  was  not  a  war  between  nations,  but  be- 

1  The  Science  of  Power. 

2  The  Pentecost  of  Calamity. 

133 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

tween  the  eternal  foundation  principles  of  right  and 
wrong.  When  these  were  at  death-grips,  the  whole 
world's  eyes  were  on  the  Church  and  its  representatives, 
from  the  Pope  upon  his  throne  to  the  humblest  village 
preacher  in  his  pulpit.  How  could  the  Church  dare  to  be 
dumb  when  all  that  she  professed  to  stand  for  hung  in 
the  balance  of  victory  or  defeat?  Never  before  did  the 
necessity  for  preaching  upon  public  themes  become  so 
manifest.  It  is  said  that  some  preachers  ignored  the  war 
altogether,  praying  neither  for  victory  nor  for  guidance, 
and  preserving  a  like  neutrality  in  their  sermons,  while 
other  men  were  shedding  their  blood  to  make  those  very 
sermons  possible.  Has  their  caution  paid  them  in  the 
end?  Ask  any  mother  in  their  congregations  whose  son 
has  fallen  in  battle.  Ask  any  soldier  who  returns  to  his 
home,  to  receive  his  religious  inspiration  from  so  dis- 
passionate a  guide.  Nay,  examine  the  man's  own  soul, 
and  the  marks  of  the  "great  refusal"  will  answer  you.  It 
is  mockery  to  seek  to  reap  the  harvests  of  Canaan  on  the 
fields  of  Laodicea. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  study  the  facts  of  the  world's 
life  in  any  cross-section  of  her  history,  to  take  sides  on 
present  moral  issues,  and  to  express  only  this  in  one's 
preaching.  That,  after  all,  is  dealing  with  results,  and 
preaching  can  never  be  effective  until  it  has  got  back 
behind  results  to  causes.  Many  of  those  causes  are  evi- 
dent enough.  The  war  was  an  event  deliberately  planned, 
and  prepared  for  with  consummate  skill.  It  would  be 
mere  waste  of  time  to  adduce  facts  in  proof  of  this. 
All  the  world  knows  it  to  be  true.  The  German  people 
stands  in  the  judgment  of  Christendom  as  a  great  and 
noble  nation  enslaved  by  the  wicked  policy  of  her  rulers ; 
miseducated,  especially  since  the  formation  of  the  Pan- 
German  League,  into  an  amazing  ignorance  and  travesty 
of  the  facts  about  other  nations ;  pledged  to  one  flattering 
national  ideal  until  she  had  become  drunken  with  wild 

134 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

arrogance.  With  models  such  as  Frederick  the  Great; 
philosophic  guides  such  as  Nietzsche;  exponents  of  his- 
tory like  Treitschke,  interpreting  the  philosophy  of  the 
superman  into  its  practical  form  as  Prussianism ;  politi- 
cians in  the  Reichstag  and  generals  in  the  field,  prepared 
to  apply  these  principles  to  the  existing  situation  with  an 
unheard-of  thoroughness  and  a  cynical  frankness  un- 
paralleled in  the  history  of  civilised  warfare — with  such 
masters  and  guides  as  these,  and  with  their  openly  avowed 
policy  of  frightfulness  and  treaty-breaking,  Germany  has 
warned  all  future  generations  against  principles  which 
she  has  exhibited  for  ever  as  essentially  dangerous  and 
bad.  Here,  surely,  there  is  a  field  which  no  living 
preacher  can  refuse  to  enter  and  explore.  Further,  there 
is  the  fact  that  all  the  disastrous  ruin  which  Germany  has 
brought  upon  herself  is  the  result  of  the  exaggeration 
of  certain  virtues,  and  the  loss  of  balance  and  proportion 
in  her  dealing  with  them.  Efficiency  and  patriotism  are 
noble  virtues,  calling  out  abundance  of  other  virtues  in 
their  service,  such  as  thoroughness,  hardihood,  self-re- 
straint, and  self-denial.  Never  since  Aristotle  has  the 
world  had  so  sharp  a  lesson  in  the  doctrine  of  the  golden 
mean.  It  has  discovered  that  all  the  vices  put  together 
are  not  so  dangerous  a  menace  to  society  as  a  few  excel- 
lent virtues  run  wild.  What  preacher  can  afford  to  ignore 
so  important  a  discovery  ? 

But  behind  all  these  German  causes  of  the  war  there 
were  others,  which  belonged  equally  to  all  the  European 
nations.  The  former  methods  of  diplomacy — its  foster- 
ing of  quarrels,  its  chicanery  and  lying,  its  unblushing 
practice  of  secret  treaty-making  which  nullified  the  whole 
effect  of  its  published  agreements  and  hoodwinked  the 
world — all  that,  adopted  and  practised  by  every  nation 
which  would  play  the  game  of  international  politics,  was 
the  ultimate  cause  of'  this  as  of  every  other  modern  war. 
When  such  causes  as  these  were  on  their  trial,  and  the 

1  135 

I 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

world  was  anxiously  watching  the  birth-throes  of  some 
cleaner,  safer,  and  more  stable  politic,  it  is  simply  incredi- 
ble that  the  Church  could  have  been  justified  in  standing 
aside  and  refusing  to  play  her  part  in  the  day  of  regenera- 
tion. 

Apart  from  these  particular  applications,  let  me  impress 
upon  you  the  general  principle.  It  is  required  of  preach- 
ing that  it  should  direct  attention  to  causes  rather  than 
merely  to  effects,  in  social  and  public  life.  All  along  the 
line,  in  her  individualist  way,  the  Church  has  lost  much 
by  ignoring  this  principle.  She  has  been  the  friend  and 
benefactress  of  the  poor,  she  has  reclaimed  drunkards 
and  prostitutes,  has  given  second  chances  to  the  victims 
of  society,  and  has  offered  a  shelter  to  the  disinherited. 
That  pity  for  the  unfortunate  individual  has  produced 
a  noble  record  of  self-sacrificing  devotion  and  redeeming 
service.  But  if  she  had  with  equal  fervour  attacked  and 
grappled  with  the  causes  of  poverty,  drunkenness,  vice, 
and  misery  of  all  kinds,  how  much  more  splendid  would 
her  record  have  been,  and  how  much  more  habitable  a 
place  would  have  been  the  world. 

Yet  the  most  important  thing  for  us  in  the  immediate 
present  is  not  the  study  of  the  causes  of  the  war  but  the 
study  of  its  effects.  We  are  only  now  beginning  to  realise 
the  scale  of  these  effects,  and  how  they  must  operate 
in  literally  making  all  things  new.  Along  every  line  of 
human  life  and  interests,  the  watchwords  of  yesterday 
are  already  out  of  date.  The  question  has  often  been 
asked.  When  the  boys  come  home,  what  shall  we  say  to 
them?  The  problem  is  really  a  much  bigger  one.  It  is. 
When  the  world  comes  home,  how  shall  we  preach  to  it  ? 
We  must  speak  to  it  in  its  own  language.  It  has  had 
enough  of  talismans  and  magic  symbols,  enough  of  plati- 
tudes, enough  of  abstract  creeds.  To-day  we  feel  the 
rush  of  the  Spirit  on  all  that  goes  to  make  up  the  life  of 
man.     It  comes  on  poetry  and  all  literature,  on  painting 

136 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

and  all  art.  It  comes  on  society  and  social  conditions, 
on  labour  and  economics — very  specially  on  these,  for  it 
is  labouring  men  who  have  saved  the  cause  of  freedom 
for  all  lands ;  on  international  relations  also  it  comes,  and 
demands  new  bonds  of  world-wide  brotherhood.  In 
these  and  all  other  regions  of  our  public  life,  the  note  of 
the  Spirit  is  experience  and  intelligibility.  We  must  speak 
to  each  of  them  in  its  own  tongue.  Each  has  its  own 
visions,  its  own  ideals,  its  own  claim  of  justice  and  of 
right.  To  each,  these  are  things  holy  and  .imperative : 
they  are  the  tongues  of  fire.  The  old  world  to  which  we 
were  accustomed  has  been  blown  to  atoms.  We  cannot 
return  to  it,  for  it  is  not  anywhere  to  return  to.  It  has 
vanished  in  ''blood  and  fire  and  vapour  of  smoke,''  as  the 
prophet  Joel  proclaimed  that  it  would.  And  the  visions 
and  dreams  of  young  men  and  old  alike,  which  he  also 
prophesied,  these  also  are  among  us.  In  general,  everyone 
must  admit  that  we  are  facing  great  opportunities  not 
only  of  individual  religion,  but  also  of  national  revival. 
But  what  these  actually  are,  and  how  they  are  to  be  es- 
tablished on  earth,  is  not  so  clear. 

One  thing,  however,  is  abundantly  clear.  It  is  that 
none  of  these  things  will  come  of  itself.  They  must  be 
brought,  and  we  must  bring  them.  No  resurrection 
comes  automatically.  Resurrection  is  a  work  of  will  and 
power.  In  one  sense  the  will  and  power  are  God's,  who 
brought  again  Christ  from  the  dead,  the  first  fruits  of  all 
who  rise.  Yet  it  was  Christ  who  said  of  His  resurrec- 
tion, "I  have  power  to  lay  down  My  life  and  I  have 
power  to  take  it  again."  In  our  day  the  son  of  man  has 
shown  in  very  wonderful  fashion  that  he  has  power  to  lay 
down  his  life.  The  time  has  now  come  when  he  must 
show  that  he  has  power  to  take  it  again.  In  this  hour  we 
are  by  his  side  for  this  very  purpose,  that  we  may  help 
him  after  his  Calvary  to  find  his  Resurrection.  The  war 
of  itself  will  not  do  this.     For  the  most  part  experience 

137 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

has  proved  that  war  can  only  intensify  the  already  exist- 
ing character  of  men  and  nations.  It  demands  high  in- 
telligence and  strenuous  exertion  to  bring  in  the  new 
earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness. 

In  other  words,  by  God's  grace  we  are  conquerors, 
but  we  must  be  more  than  conquerors — it  is  beginning 
now  to  dawn  upon  us  how  much  more  than  conquerors 
we  must  be.  Had  mere  victory  been  our  ultimate  aim, 
we  would  probably  have  been  Prussianised  in  a  blind 
fury  of  revenge ;  and  so,  conquering  Prussia  in  the  body, 
we  would  have  been  conquered  by  her  in  the  spirit.  It  is 
through  love  alone  that  we  can  make  our  victory  either 
worthy  or  enduring,  for  love  is  the  one  condition  upon 
which  we  can  rightly  meet  the  vast  opportunity  that  is  set 
before  us.  In  this  spirit  we  have  to  face  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  fundamental  principles  of  man's  public  life. 
The  war  has  for  the  time  being  swept  away  all  artifi- 
cialities, and  brought  us  down  to  the  bedrock  of  reality 
and  simpleness.  It  has  induced  a  general  willingness 
to  face  facts  and  to  revise  policies,  even  such  as  were 
accredited  by  ancient  custom.  It  has  for  the  moment  put 
an  end  to  self-indulgence,  and  forced  upon  our  attention 
larger  conceptions  of  life  and  more  generous  ideals  than 
have  ever  entered  into  the  region  of  practical  politics 
before. 

This  does  not  mean  that  we  can  fulfil  our  responsibility 
by  any  simple  and  easy  process,  such  as  the  literal  appli- 
cation of  the  precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  all 
the  relations  and  problems  of  social  or  international  life. 
To  do  this  is  to  misunderstand  Christ's  teaching  at  the 
outset,  and  to  run  ourselves  into  a  hopeless  moral  cul-de- 
sac  at  many  points.  It  will  not  avail  us  to  declare  that 
we  are  going  to  apply  the  principles  of  private  morality 
to  all  public  questions,  as  if  that  were  the  simple  remedy 
for  all  our  difficulties.  In  private  life  we  may  exalt  our 
ideals  as  high  as  we  choose,  and  set  ourselves  to  realise 

138 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

them  as  the  one  grand  quest  of  life.  But  in  public  life, 
when  we  are  about  to  enter  the  domain  of  new  legisla- 
tion, the  case  is  not  so  simple.  Within  her  own  bounda- 
ries the  Church  must  be  the  pioneer  of  ideals  higher  than 
those  of  the  average  man,  but  she  cannot  insist  on  the 
immediate  embodiment  of  these  ideals  in  the  statute 
book.  Laws  cannot  justly  be  made  for  nations  upon  the 
level  of  the  ideals  of  the  highest  spirits  in  the  nation. 
Legislation  must  be  the  expression  of  the  average  con- 
science of  the  people  legislated  for,  and  any  legisla- 
tion which  goes  beyond  that,  or  at  least  far  beyond  it,  is 
courting  all  manner  of  evasions,  breaches,  and  betrayals. 
This  must  be  kept  in  mind,  "lest  one  good  custom  should 
corrupt  the  world." 

This  is  but  one  example  of  the  complexity  of  the  prob- 
lems we  are  facing,  and  of  the  need  for  carefulness  and 
intelligence  in  dealing  with  them.  The  first  necessity 
is  for  thought  and  understanding.  The  war  has  forced 
that  necessity  upon  us  all.  We  have  never  yet  framed  to 
ourselves  an  adequate  philosophy  of  history.  To  deny 
that  there  is  such  a  thing,  would  be  but  a  new  variant 
of  the  saying  of  the  ancient  fool,  who  said  in  his  heart, 
"There  is  no  God."  We  have  not  indeed  denied  the  ul- 
timate rationality  of  history,  but  we  have  proclaimed  it 
to  be  beyond  our  understanding,  and  left  it  for  God  to 
understand.  By  doing  so  we  have  hindered  God  in  His 
age-long  work  in  the  life  of  man  upon  the  earth.  The  war 
has  forced  us  to  think  these  things  out  for  ourselves.  The 
whole  meaning  of  man's  labour  under  the  sun  is  that  he 
is  called  upon  to  be  a  "labourer  together  with  God."  God, 
the  Creator,  never  finishes  any  part  of  His  creation.  He 
fashions  it  in  the  rough,  and  passes  over  the  half-finished 
thing  for  man  to  complete.  That  has  been  so  from  the 
beginning,  when  men  found  the  crude  world,  and  smote 
it  into  comfort  and  beauty  for  their  uses,  hewing  its  stone 
and  shaping  its  timber  and  smelting  its  iron.    From  that 

139 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

first  hour  until  now  there  never  has  been  so  loud  a  call 
to  man  to  enter  into  the  fellowship  of  creation  with  the 
Maker.  Here  is  the  world  in  ruins,  with  latent  possibili- 
ties in  it  of  the  new  earth  wherein  righteousness  may 
dwell.  In  fellowship  with  God  we  must  rebuild  the  world 
— not  this  time  upon  its  former  foundations  of  ambition 
and  exploitation  by  the  strongest,  but  upon  the  granite 
rocks  of  morality,  mutual  service,  and  love.  The  immense 
energies  and  vitalities  of  national  and  international  life 
are  in  a  new  way  set  free  to-day;  it  is  ours  to  observe 
them,  to  combine  them,  and  to  direct  them. 

When  we  attempt  a  more  particular  consideration  of 
what  all  this  means,  we  are  immediately  confronted  with 
the  preliminary  task  of  dealing  in  wise  and  Christian 
fashion  with  our  vanquished  enemies,  and  this  is  mani- 
festly a  matter  on  which  the  Church  is  called  upon  for 
a  clear  and  effective  lead.  It  has  been  our  painful  duty 
during  those  past  years  to  insist  upon  the  righteousness 
of  our  cause  and  the  inexcusable  wickedness  of  the  policy 
and  methods  of  the  enemy.  In  doing  this  we  have  had 
to  face  the  censure  of  some  good  people  who  seemed 
incapable  of  admitting  the  fact  of  wickedness  even  when 
it  was  threatening  their  lives,  or  of  realising  its  awful 
danger.  Having  conquered,  we  had  still  to  beware  of 
hidden  treachery  and  new  dangers  lurking  beneath  the 
professed  submission.  But  the  moment  it  became  safe 
and  possible  to  do  so,  it  was  clearly  the  duty  of  Christian 
victors  to  do  everything  in  their  power  for  those  whose 
misguided  conduct  had  brought  them  low.  "If  thine 
enemy  be  hungry,  give  him  bread  to  eat."  It  was  our 
Christian  duty  to  press  for  the  removal  of  the  food  block- 
ade on  the  earliest  possible  opportunity.  Further,  it  is 
our  Christian  task  to  restore,  so  far  as  may  be,  the  crushed 
and  humiliated  manhood  of  the  German  people.  This 
does  not  imply  that  those  who  planned  and  executed 
atrocities  should  go  unpunished.    But  it  does  demand  that 

140 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

we  shall  be  willing  to  accept  the  excuses  of  those  who 
confess  themselves  misled,  and  to  do  everything  in  our 
power  to  encourage  and  strengthen  them  in  their  accept- 
ance of  nobler  ideals  and  their  attempt  to  rebuild  their 
national  life  on  worthier  principles.  This  is  indeed  the 
only  sound  policy,  in  view  of  the  danger  of  driving  them 
into  desperate  courses  which  would  inevitably  lead  to 
permanent  embitterment  and  future  wars.  But  our  first 
business  is  not  with  policy  but  with  principle,  and  there 
is  no  doubt  as  to  the  teaching  of  Christianity  in  such  a 
case. 

Having  settled  this  preliminary  matter,  we  immedi- 
ately come  to  one  of  vastly  greater  responsibility.  We 
find  ourselves  facing  for  the  first  time  in  history  the  living 
and  practicable  possibility  of  a  final  end  of  war.  This 
is,  indeed,  by  no  means  the  first  time  that  men  have  said 
such  things.  In  England,  just  after  the  first  great  Exhibi- 
tion, there  was  a  widespread  conviction  that  the  problem 
had  been  solved,  and  that  great  wars  were  over  for  ever. 
That  was  in  1853,  and  in  1854  the  Crimean  War  broke 
out.  In  the  days  of  the  Hague  Conference  there  were 
some  who  cherished  the  dream  of  everlasting  peace:  in 
1914  the  Great  War  broke  out.  The  number  of  those  who 
died  in  the  Crimean  War  was  about  24,000,  of  whom  only 
about  4000  fell  in  battle  or  died  of  wounds.^  In  the 
Great  War  my  country  lost  well-nigh  a  million  dead. 
There  are  many  whose  faith  in  the  possibility  of  ever 
bringing  war  to  an  end  is  shaken  by  such  facts  as  these, 
and  who  fall  back  upon  the  humiliating  theory  that  man 
is  essentially  a  fighting  animal,  which  will  fight  on  till 
the  end  of  time.  But  the  past  four  years  have  both 
wearied  and  terrified  the  world  in  regard  to  war.  Great 
statesmen  of  various  lands  found  themselves  confronted 
with  the  task  of  devising  means  whereby  the  failures  of 
the  past  efiForts  after  permanent  peace  might  be  turned 

1  Justin  M'Carthy,  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  ch.  xxviii. 

141 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

into  success  at  last.  The  ideal  of  a  League  of  Nations 
is  the  result.  Opinion  is  divided  upon  the  sufficiency  of 
the  Articles  published  by  the  Peace  Conference  in  Paris, 
but  the  general  idea  of  a  unified  world  and  an  inclusive 
bond  between  the  nations,  is  adopted  by  the  majority 
of  leading  statesmen  in  every  land.  In  what  I  have  to 
say  upon  this  subject  I  wish  to  avoid  all  controversial 
points  as  far  as  that  is  possible,  and  to  speak  rather  of  the 
general  idea  of  a  League  of  Nations  than  of  the  particular 
form  in  which  the  present  articles  have  expressed  that 
idea.  This  lecture  labours  under  the  serious  disadvantage 
of  having  had  to  be  written  and  printed  some  months 
ago,  in  ignorance  of  the  changes  which  were  sure  to  come 
in  the  situation  between  the  time  of  its  preparation  and  its 
delivery.  But  whatever  form  the  great  ideal  may  have 
found  for  its  expression  before  the  lecture  is  delivered,  it 
will  still  remain  true  that  modern  preaching  must  perforce 
concern  itself  with  the  whole  subject. 

The  League  of  Nations  was  formed  in  full  conscious- 
ness of  all  that  rendered  its  success  improbable,  and  it 
introduced  two  elements  into  its  great  experiment  which 
had  never  been  tried  on  earth  before.  The  first  of  these 
is  its  universal  embrace  of  all  civilised  nations  within  its 
bond.  This  radically  changed  the  situation  from  any  al- 
liance or  system  of  alliances  known  before,  in  which  the 
balance  of  power  was  maintained  by  rival  groups  of  na- 
tions. The  second  is  the  pooling  of  all  national  military 
and  naval  forces  existing  anywhere,  for  the  common 
purpose  of  policing  the  world.  This  latter  factor  renders 
the  competitive  increase  of  armaments  impossible,  and 
meets  with  an  overwhelming  force  of  arms  any  attempt  to 
break  away  from  the  League  on  the  part  of  any  of  its 
constituent  members.  In  view  of  these  new  conditions, 
and  the  hope  of  peace  they  bring,  it  is  surely  the  duty 
of  the  Church  to  throw  her  whole  universal  strength  into 
the  realising,  in  some  form  or  other,  of  th^  mighty  dream. 

142 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

When  we  think  of  what  the  next  great  war  must  be  Hke, 
if  war  should  ever  return,  we  see  how  true  this  is. 
Science,  whose  proper  function  is  production,  and  the 
ameliorating  and  enriching  of  the  conditions  of  human 
life,  has  for  four  years  been  wholly  devoted  to  destruc- 
tion. Nor  has  she  come  to  the  end  of  her  powers  along 
that  line.  She  is  only  at  the  beginning  of  them,  and  if 
she  were  to  proceed  in  her  development  of  the  means  of 
destruction  for  even  a  few  more  years,  the  next  war 
would  be  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  suicidal  conspiracy 
for  the  extirpation  of  the  human  race.  These  words  are 
not  rhetoric,  they  are  simply  and  literally  true,  and  they 
give  no  faintest  conception  of  the  carnival  of  devilry 
which  that  conspiracy  would  let  loose  upon  the  earth.  In 
all  circumstances  the  Church  must  stand  for  the  Christian 
ideal  of  peace  on  earth.  But  the  peace  for  which  she 
stands  must  be  a  peace  which  God  and  humanity  will 
countersign.  Had  she  demanded  a  patched-up  peace  in 
these  past  years,  a  peace  which  must  inevitably  have 
handed  on  the  heritage  of  war  to  the  coming  generation, 
she  would  have  betrayed  the  Christian  ideal.  Now,  when, 
under  new  conditions,  peace  seems  actually  to  have  come 
within  our  grasp,  how  much  blacker  would  the  betrayal 
be  if,  on  any  pretext  whatsoever,  she  did  not  do  her  very 
utmost  to  strengthen  and  consolidate  the  effort  after  its 
attainment. 

Of  the  League  we  shall  have  something  further  to  say, 
but  meanwhile  there  is  another  point  which  demands  at- 
tention before  we  pass  on  to  that.  We  have  repudiated 
the  doctrine  that  man  must  always  remain  a  fighting  ani- 
mal, whose  brute  instincts  will  keep  wars  raging  on  the 
earth  to  the  end  of  time.  Yet  we  have  tried  to  show  that, 
out  of  this  immeasurable  evil,  great  elements  of  good 
have  come,  in  the  quickening  of  such  ideals  as  self-sacri- 
fice, courage,  and  endurance.  If  we  are  not  to  lapse  back 
again  into  that  spiritual  lethargy  which  is  the  chief  danger 

143 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

of  times  when  peace  is  guaranteed  and  safety  assured, 
we  must  find  a  moral  equivalent  for  war.  Peace  must 
discover  a  spirit  of  equally  vital  interest  to  the  spirit 
which  has  been  called  forth  on  the  fields  of  battle  or  the 
threatened  seas.  The  literal  translation  of  Psalm  Ixxvi. 
10  is,  "The  residue  of  wrath  shalt  Thou  gird  upon  Thee." 
For  us  this  means  the  utilising  for  other  ends,  of  the  un- 
spent passion  generated  by  the  war.  How  this  is  to  be 
accomplished,  will  be  one  of  the  paramount  problems 
of  the  immediate  future.  It  is  a  problem  which  as  yet 
has  been  but  little  thought  of,  but  which  seems  to  offer 
a  very  fertile  field  for  speculation  and  experiment.  The 
heart  of  every  boy  and  girl  thrills  to  the  contact  of  mother 
earth.  Their  restless  energies,  their  wild  idealism,  their 
untamable  curiosity  seek  outlet  in  some  adventure.  For- 
tunately, the  earth  and  the  sea  are  full  of  natural  oppor- 
tunities for  such  adventure.  Exploration  and  pioneer- 
ing are  still  possible ;  the  reclaiming  of  waste  lands  and  the 
afforestation  of  mountains,  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and 
all  manner  of  work  in  stone  and  wood  and  iron,  the  sail- 
ing on  the  sea  and  the  conquest  of  the  air — all  these  offer 
opportunities.  Science,  linked  up  with  travel,  may  teach 
them  to  explore  the  resources  alike  of  sea  and  land. 
There  should  also  be  more  of  public  recognition  and  re- 
ward for  courage  and  service,  which  would  keep  these 
ideals  more  in  evidence.  These  are  but  a  very  small 
sample  of  the  ways  in  which  the  sense  of  high  adventure 
may  draw  out  the  vitality  of  the  human  spirit,  and  bring 
back  romance  and  chivalry,  lost  of  late  in  battle,  to  cast 
their  glamour  over  peaceful  pursuits.  The  passion  to 
save  life  is  surely  as  available  as  the  passion  to  win  bat- 
tles. The  touch  of  mother  earth  is  as  sweet  and  whole- 
some for  the  spirit  in  peace  as  it  is  bracing  in  war.  We 
heard  much  in  former  days  in  praise  of  universal  national 
training  for  military  and  naval  service.  Might  there  not 
be  for  every  boy  and  girl  a  period  of  national  service 

144 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

along  some  such  lines  as  those  we  have  mentioned,  in  the 
interests  of  peaceful  progress  ?  And  if  this  were  ever  to 
be  instituted,  would  it  not  be  peculiarly  fitting  that  the 
Church  should  play  her  part  in  so  wholesome  an  enter- 
prise ?  How  better  can  we  show  ourselves  to  be  the  salt 
of  the  earth  than  by  giving  piquancy  to  its  daily  bread, 
and  to  the  labour  by  which  that  bread  is  earned? 

But  let  us  return  to  our  main  subject.  The  coming 
of  the  new  world  order  will  be  the  most  considerable 
event  in  history  since  the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ.  Inter- 
nationalism had  been  talked  of  before,  but  its  most  ele- 
mentary principles  had  never  been  understood.  As  a 
science  it  was  in  utter  confusion,  and  men  were  every- 
where attempting  to  solve  international  problems  with  na- 
tional, and  even  with  tribal  and  family,  instruments  and 
ambitions.  In  a  tentative  and  preparatory  way  it  had  been 
perceived  that  the  highest  ideals  of  national  life  are  such 
as  will  bring  benefit  to  other  nations  and  to  the  world. 
Your  Monroe  Doctrine  was,  for  all  ordinary  situations, 
the  obviously  wise  and  right  doctrine  for  a  land  so  won- 
derfully capable  of  supplying  its  own  demands  as  your 
land  is.  Yet  there  are  causes  which  by  their  very  nature 
are  cosmopolitan.  There  can  never  be  a  Monroe  Doc- 
trine in  freedom  or  in  righteousness,  for  the  bondage 
or  the  crime  of  any  country  is  a  standing  menace  to 
every  other  country.  Abraham  Lincoln  spoke  in  Phila- 
delphia of  "the  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence which  gave  liberty,  not  alone  to  the  people  of  this 
country,  but  I  hope  to  the  world,  for  all  future  time." 
Woodrow  Wilson  said  in  Omaha  that  "Now  it  is  our 
great  duty  to  fuse  the  elements  of  America  together  for 
the  purpose  of  the  life  of  the  world."  A  still  wider  ex- 
tension of  the  same  ideal  has  been  manifested  in  the  de- 
sire of  all  good  and  wise  men  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 
to  heal  the  ancient  breaches,  and  to  link  up  the  sentiments 
and  fortunes  of  America  with  those  of  Britain.  I  need  not 

145 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

remind  you  how  largely  the  war  has  fulfilled  this  desire. 
Surely  it  cannot  be  outwith  the  range  of  any  preacher's 
duties  to  foster  our  happiest  relations.  If  I  mistake 
not,  at  the  moment  when  the  Venezuelan  misunderstand- 
ing threatened  a  serious  breach  between  us,  the  pulpits 
of  America  played  no  small  part  in  preventing  hostilities ; 
and  it  is  inconceivable  that  any  Christian  man  could  re- 
gard that  as  a  secular  or  unsuitable  employment  for  all 
preachers  to  engage  in.  But  if  that  be  true  of  a  single 
incident  in  international  politics,  how  far  more  true  must 
it  be  of  the  linking  up  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  in  per- 
manent good  understanding? 

The  relation  of  internationalism  to  patriotism  may  pre- 
sent a  difficulty  to  some.  It  is  not  necessary  to  plead 
for  the  essential  sacredness  of  patriotism  before  any  au- 
dience of  American  preachers.  Your  flag  is  painted  on 
the  heavens,  and  in  every  sunrise  and  in  every  sunset  you 
may  see  the  long  bands  of  crimson  and  of  white;  and, 
over  all,  the  blue  sky  spangled  with  the  stars  of  God. 
Patriotism  is  not  a  policy,  it  is  a  sacrament.  I  pity  the 
man  who  is  too  spiritual  to  preach  the  love  of  country  to 
his  countrymen.  Is  there  not  then  a  danger  lest  the  larger 
international  brotherhood  will  lessen  or  obliterate  the 
narrower  patriotic  sentiment  ?  The  reply  is  that  interna- 
tionalism is  not  offered  as  a  substitute  for  patriotism. 
The  strongest  supporters  of  the  idea  of  the  League  are 
among  the  leading  patriots  of  the  world.  For  all  those 
good  purposes  which  patriotism  has  served,  it  will  remain, 
at  once  the  most  useful  and  the  most  passionate  sentiment 
in  public  life.  But  by  the  introduction  of  the  larger  ideal 
you  will  cleanse  patriotism  and  humanise  it.  Its  danger 
in  the  past  has  been  the  tendency  to  become  exclusive, 
selfish,  and  supercilious.  When,  in  the  new  consciousness 
of  our  oneness  with  all  other  lands,  it  ceases  to  be  so,  it 
will  become  both  nobler  and  mightier  yet. 

In  all  this  it  will  be  seen  that  we  have  been  regarding 

146 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

the  League  of  Nations  idea  as  an  instrument  for  a  far 
greater  result  than  the  end  of  war.  Nothing  which  aims 
merely  at  ending  anything  has  touched  the  highest  levels 
of  endeavour.  The  spirit  which  inspires  the  new  ideal 
is  a  positive,  not  a  negative  spirit.  Military  and  political 
alliances  between  nations  are  good  and  valuable  so  far  as 
they  go,  but  the  thing  that  really  matters  in  deciding  ul- 
timate destinies  is  the  spirit  underlying  any  such  alliances. 
It  is  the  trust  or  suspicion,  the  admiration  or  aversion, 
the  love  or  the  hatred  which  the  nations  cherish  toward 
one  another  in  their  hearts.  The  new  world  order  stands 
for  this  positive  aim.  It  would  create  love  and  good  un- 
derstanding between  all  the  peoples  of  the  world ;  it  would 
make  goodwill,  and  not  the  lust  for  exploitation,  to  be 
the  principle  of  trade  and  commerce  between  the  coun- 
tries; it  would  inculcate  willingness  for  sacHfice  on  the 
part  of  each  nation — the  sacrifice  of  cherished  privileges 
and  ambitions — for  the  sake  of  the  general  good;  it 
would  have  each  land  bring  in  its  own  peculiar  gifts  for 
the  enrichment  of  all  other  lands. 

But  this  is  none  other  than  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
come  to  earth  at  last.  The  modern  world  has  experi- 
mented with  all  the  ideals  of  paganism — with  the  ideals 
of  Rome,  Greece,  and  Nineveh.  For  the  larger  purposes 
of  modern  life  all  these  experiments  have  failed.  Now 
we  are  altogether  coming  back  to  Christ  for  one  more 
experiment,  on  a  larger  scale  than  any  in  the  past,  in 
which  we  shall  try  at  last  the  ideals  of  His  Kingdom. 
The  question  that  will  be  answered  is,  whether  Jesus 
Christ  is  or  is  not  a  match  for  the  selfish  impulses  of 
crude  human  nature  in  nations  and  in  men.  Neither 
patriotism  nor  internationalism  is  a  true  end  in  itself ; 
they  are  but  means  towards  the  ends  for  which  Jesus 
lived  and  died.  By  what  imaginable  argument  can  any 
minister  of  Christ  excuse  his  refusal  to  play  his  part  in 
the  decisive  battle  of  His  Kingdom? 

147 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

There  is  one  further  point  on  which  we  must  pause  for 
a  moment  here.  Every  preacher  of  modern  times  pro- 
fesses to  take  some  interest  in  foreign  missions,  and  re- 
gards them  as  legitimate  subjects  for  his  preaching.  It 
was  a  very  remarkable  feature  in  the  war,  that  we  dis- 
covered how  easy  it  was  to  enlist  the  interest  of  soldiers 
by  addresses  on  Foreign  Missions.  No  doubt  this  was 
partly  due  to  their  own  new  experience  of  travel,  and 
their  consequent  realisation  of  the  width  of  the  world 
and  of  the  actual  existence  of  foreign  nations.  But  there 
was  more  in  it  than  that.  Foreign  missions  used,  until 
recent  years,  to  be  regarded  by  the  home  Church  largely 
from  the  point  of  view  of  sentiment.  A  halo  of  romance 
and  picturesque  adventure,  a  sense  of  the  far  distances 
of  the  world,  and  of  dimly  seen  lands  whose  shores  were 
washed  by  strange  oceans — these  were  the  light  by  which 
the  home  churches  once  formed  their  conception  of  the 
missionary.  In  immaculate  clericals  he  sat  under  his 
palm-tree,  Bible  in  hand,  with  his  surrounding  group  of 
naked  savages.  Of  late  a  change  has  come  over  the 
spirit  of  this  dream,  and  the  missionary  is  now  regarded 
as  a  nation-builder,  educationist,  legislator,  civiliser,  and 
statesman  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Statesmanship  has 
taken  the  place  of  sentiment  as  the  watchword  of  the 
Foreign  Mission  idea.  Nor  can  the  preacher  in  home 
lands  effectively  treat  the  subject  otherwise.  He  must 
realise  the  supreme  evil  of  all  godless  civilisation,  which 
is  the  only  alternative  to  missionary  enterprise,  and  which 
is  by  many  degrees  a  greater  danger  to  the  world's  life 
than  the  rudest  barbarism.  Too  often  the  civilisation  of 
the  West,  as  it  invaded  the  paganism  of  the  East,  has 
borne  with  it  no  trace  of  Christian  principles  whatever. 
Its  gospel  has  been  that  of  antichrist — greed  of  gain,  lust, 
drunkenness,  and  cruelty.  These  have  been  by  far  the 
most  formidable  obstacles  with  which  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary has  had  to  contend.    Now  he  sees  the  West  pro- 

148 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

posing  to  go  forth  to  the  East  in  the  exact  spirit  and  in- 
tention of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  bearing  in  its  hands  for 
the  poverty  of  heathenism  the  rich  gifts  of  protection, 
freedom,  and  fair  play  for  all  mankind.  Its  purpose  is 
to  achieve  on  the  largest  scale  many  of  the  same  objects 
for  which  every  foreign  mission  exists.  Its  policy  must 
certainly  include  the  recognition  of  Christian  missions 
as  its  allies  and  exponents.  This  fact  alone  is  enough 
-to  demand  from  all  preachers  that  they  be  also  states- 
men. "" 

This  lecture  has  been  mainly  occupied  with  those  in- 
ternational aspects  of  statesmanship  which  have  been  the 
direct  and  immediate  outcome  of  the  war.  Beyond  these, 
however,  there  lie  the  wide  fields  of  Christian  ethics  and 
economics  as  they  concern  the  social  conditions  of  our 
own  lands.  There  we  find  the  extremest  contrasts  be- 
tween the  condition  of  the  top  and  the  bottom  classes 
in  society,  to  which  contrasts  no  corresponding  differences 
in  merit  or  in  intelligence  can  be  shown  to  exist.  Among 
the  workers  you  have  a  continual  pressure  for  higher 
wages,  better  houses,  and  ampler  leisure.  These  demands 
are  in  some  cases  created  by  the  selfishness  and  tyranny 
of  capitalists  and  employers.  In  other  cases  they  are 
themselves  tyrannous  and  selfish,  demanding  conditions 
which  would  render  production  impossible.  The  strikes 
which  broke  out  during  war-time,  and  those  which  be- 
came epidemic  after  the  war,  are  ominous  signs  of  the 
times.  In  them  one  hears  the  distant  rumble  of  what 
may  become  a  world-wide  thunderstorm  of  revolution 
against  all  forms  of  centralised  government.  These,  on 
the  economic  and  social  side,  are  accompanied  by  a  not 
less  serious  set  of  conditions  on  the  side  of  morals.  Es- 
pecially in  regard  to  the  relations  between  the  sexes  do 
we  find  the  old  order  changing,  giving  place  to  new. 
Questions   which    for  generations   have   been   supposed 

149 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

to  be  closed  for  ever,  are  being  reopened  without  a  tremor 
of  conscience  or  a  hesitation  of  modesty  or  self-distrust. 
At  the  very  moment  when  woman  is  gaining  her  final 
charter  of  emancipation,  the  whole  theory  of  marriage 
and  of  home  life  is  being  challenged.  These  and  count- 
less other  matters  are  being  brought  out  for  discussion, 
on  the  definitely  understood  condition  that  they  are  to  be 
treated  as  open  questions. 

All  this  ferment  has  been  long  in  process,  but  the  war 
has  brought  it  to  the  boiling-over  point.  The  most  sig- 
nificant fact  of  late,  so  far  as  the  labour  controversy  is 
concerned,  is  that  the  League  of  Nations  has  taken  it  over 
as  a  proper  subject  for  its  treatment,  by  the  machinery 
of  international  bureaux.  But  the  whole  heave  of  society 
is  ominous  or  promising,  whichever  it  may  turn  out  to 
be.  There  is  a  sense  of  something  great  and  elemental 
about  to  come,  changing  conditions  of  human  life.  We 
have  staked  our  all  upon  democracy;  we  have  fought 
for  it  and  won  it ;  we  have  seen  it  winning  out,  hand  over 
hand,  against  all  the  remaining  strongholds  of  tyranny. 
Yet  none  of  us  has  really  understood  it,  and  few  have 
tried  to  understand.  Something  has  been  wrong  with  us 
all.  We  have  not  been  big  enough  to  manage  modern 
life.  The  cities  which  we  have  created,  the  institutions 
which  we  have  set  up,  have  turned  round  upon  us  like 
Frankenstein's  monster.  While  on  the  one  hand  we  have 
been  gaining  democracy,  on  the  other  hand  we  have  been 
losing  it  in  various  directions.  We  have  been  out  for  the 
wrong  things, — for  inadequate  and  futile  things — such 
as  success,  politics,  peace,  comfort,  wealth.  These  things 
are  excellent  as  means  towards  the  true  ends  of  living ;  as 
ends  in  themselves  they  are  not  only  disappointing,  but 
supremely  dangerous.  Democracy  has  other  enemies  than 
emperors :  all  mistaken  and  mean  conceptions  of  life  are 
its  enemies.  It  stands  for  the  equality  of  men.  This 
does  not  mean  equality  in  natural  gifts,  in  abilities,  or 

150 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

even  in  rewards.  Rewards  must  ever  be  refused  to  those 
who  shirk,  and  given  to  those  who  obey,  the  imperious 
calls  of  duty.  Democracy  stands  for  equality  of  opportu- 
nity for  all  men  born,  the  equal  right  of  each  to  have  an 
unhandicapped  chance  of  developing  the  best  that  is  in 
him.  The  divisions  and  class  hatreds,  that  separate  the 
people  of  a  land  into  hostile  camps  and  exclusive  social 
castes,  are  the  denial  of  this  equality,  and  they  are  due 
to  fundamental  misunderstandings  of  the  real  character 
of  human  life.  The  war,  uniting  men  of  all  ranks  in 
common  enterprise,  common  danger,  and  common  suffer- 
ing, has  done  much  for  the  idea  of  equality,  and  its  work 
must  now  be  consolidated  into  permanent  convictions  on 
which  we  are  prepared  to  act.  Democracy  also  stands 
for  freedom.  But  we  have  been  free  so  long  that  we  have 
forgotten  what  freedom  means.  Freedom  is  a  much 
richer  and  deeper  thing  than  many  of  its  most  enthusiastic 
advocates  understand.  As  an  end  in  itself,  it  is  of  little 
value ;  as  a  means  towards  the  true  ends  of  living  it  is  of 
priceless  worth.  It  involves  the  further  question.  What 
are  we  free  to  be  and  to  do?  It  is  of  little  gain  to  any 
country  that  its  citizens  are  free  to  be  wretched,  discon- 
tented, and  enemies  of  society.  It  is  a  great  thing  if 
they  are  free  to  live,  to  laugh,  and  to  love.  Thus,  as  Lin- 
coln proclaimed  fifty-six  years  ago  upon  the  field  of 
Gettysburg,  democracy  is  once  again  upon  its  trial.  We 
have  fought  for  it ;  now  we  must  define  it.  We  have  won 
the  war;  now  we  must  win  the  peace. 

I  have  touched  but  lightly  upon  all  these  momentous 
things,  partly  because  the  social  conscience  of  the  Church 
has  been  awakening  tq  them  of  late,  and  many  voices  have 
been  proclaiming  their  message.  Dr.  Henry  Sloane  Coffin 
devoted  his  Lyman  Beecher  Lectures  entirely  to  this  sub- 
ject, and  gave  it  one  of  the  most  masterly  expositions 
it  has  yet  had.  My  own  task  is  rather  to  show  the  con- 
nection of  this  and  many  other  subjects  with  the  war,  and 

151 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

especially  to  recall  the  attention  of  preachers  from  dogma 
to  experience.  All  these  social  problems  are  matters  of 
experience.  They  command  men's  attention  whenever 
anyone  speaks  of  them,  because  they  are  the  living  inter- 
ests of  the  world  which  the  war  has  awakened.  But  expe- 
rience is  not  a  matter  of  water-tight  compartments,  as  if 
there  were  such  things  as  a  man's  political  experience 
and  his  religious  experience,  divided  off  from  one  another 
by  impenetrable  barriers.  Consequently  it  would  appear 
that  no  preacher  who  would  really  appeal  to  men's  ex- 
perience can  possibly  ignore  these  subjects.  The  minister 
who  does  not  read  the  newspapers  in  a  time  like  this  is 
qualified  for  preaching  only  in  a  land  where  no  news- 
papers are  published.  A  preaching  which  does  not  include 
any  beyond  individual  interests,  whether  temporal  or  eter- 
nal, is  surely  an  anomaly  to-day.  We  are  called  upon  to 
give  to  the  movements  of  our  time  the  backing  of  an  in- 
formed and  intelligent  thought  on  the  part  of  the  general 
mass  of  mankind,  and  to  direct  into  Christian  channels 
the  immense  vitalities  which  the  war  has  set  free. 

This  is  an  essentially  sacred  and  Christian  task.  We 
live  in  the  days  of  a  victory  which  has  come  through 
sacrifice.  The  world  has  been  redeemed  by  precious 
blood.  All  its  hopes  of  a  better  life  are  founded  upon 
sacrifice;  and  it  has  been  proved  to  demonstration  that 
selfishness  has  no  future  but  ruin  and  catastrophe.  These 
are  the  social  lessons  of  the  war,  and  they  need  to  be  in- 
terpreted in  terms  of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  His  cross.  It 
is  as  if  He  were  saying  to  us  all,  "Ye  are  they  which  have 
continued  with  Me  in  My  temptations,  and  I  appoint 
unto  you  a  kingdom."  Late  at  night,  when  the  decks 
were  silent  on  a  great  Atlantic  liner,  long  before  the  war, 
I  found  myself  alone  with  a  man  famous  in  the  public 
life  of  the  United  States.  We  fell  into  serious  conversa- 
tion about  the  social  conditions  of  our  great  cities.  I 
asked  him  what  remedy  he  proposed,  and  he   replied, 

152 


THE  PREACHER  AS  STATESMAN 

"An  Emperor."  I  expressed  my  astonishment  that  any 
citizen  of  your  great  RepubHc  should  have  cherished  such 
a  hope.  "Yes,"  he  replied,  "an  Emperor — and  His  name 
is  Jesus  Christ."  The  Emperor  has  come,  and  this  is  the 
day  of  His  Empire.  Long  ago  He  founded  it  in  sacrifice, 
bringing  peace  by  the  blood  of  His  cross.  That  peace  has 
been  long  in  coming,  and  many  brave  men's  lives  have 
been  made  conformable  unto  His  death  that  it  might  come. 
But  Calvary  may,  as  we  have  already  said,  be  either  bar- 
ren or  fruitful,  according  to  the  Resurrection  which  it 
brings.  On  His  cross  He  cried,  "It  is  finished,"  meaning 
doubtless  among  other  things,  those  evils  of  society  which 
had  torn  asunder  and  tortured  the  world.  But  such 
things  are  "an  unconscionable  time  in  dying,"  and  many 
of  them  are  not  yet  dead.  Can  any  preacher  of  the 
Kingdom  stand  aloof  from  it  in  the  day  of  its  coming? 
It  is  excellent  to  go  down  a  mean  street  and  preach  to  the 
inhabitants  of  its  slums  by  the  light  of  a  lantern  on  which 
you  have  written  the  inscription,  "God  is  Love."  They 
will  take  your  message  seriously  when  they  discover 
that  you  are  there  also  to  give  them  homes  instead  of 
hovels,  beauty  for  ashes,  and  the  garment  of  praise  for 
the  spirit  of  heaviness. 


153 


LECTURE  VII 
The  Preacher  as  Priest 

OUR  two  closing  studies  lead  us  to  the  two  princi- 
pal and  perpetual  offices  of  the  Christian  minis- 
try, those  of  priest  and  prophet.  The  two  have 
much  in  common,  and  they  must  be  taken  together  as  a 
whole,  neither  being  complete  without  the  other.  Both 
priest  and  prophet  are  in  a  true  sense  mediators  between 
God  and  man,  but  in  different  ways.  The  prophet  mediates 
by  means  of  persuasive  or  commanding  speech,  proclaim- 
ing God's  word  to  man:  the  priest  mediates  by  means  of 
ritual  and  devotion,  offering  man's  soul  with  all  its  needs 
to  God.  The  offices  exist  because  of  the  two  great  si- 
lences in  which  we  live,  and  which  often  become  oppres- 
sive and  painful  in  their  longing  to  be  broken.  The 
silence  of  God,  under  whose  mystery  we  suffer  and  re- 
joice, work  and  rest,  sin  and  repent,  without  one  authentic 
word  from  the  August  Majesty  above  us,  either  of  guid- 
ance or  praise  or  blame,  is  one  of  the  sorest  facts  of  life. 
It  is  given  to  the  prophet  to  break  that  silence,  and  speak 
to  the  people  words  which  they  recognise  as  authorita- 
tive words  of  the  Lord.  The  silence  of  the  soul  is  that  for 
which  the  priest  exists.  The  inner  world  of  doubt  and 
faith,  anxiety  and  confidence,  repentance  and  moral  tri- 
umph, longing  and  apathy,  is  for  the  most  part  a  silent 
world.  We  try  to  find  relief  in  language  for  pent-up  emo- 
tion, but  the  words  will  not  come.  We  try  to  pray,  but 
know  not  what  we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought,  and  find 
ourselves  "uttering  prayers  and  leaving  God  to  punctuate 

154 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

them  and  make  sense  of  them."^  The  priest  finds  utter- 
ance to  God  for  the  people,  and  breaks  the  silence  of 
their  souls  in  fitting  and  reverent  expression  of  their 
desires  and  thoughts. 

Obviously  it  is  the  priest  who  is  par  excellence  the 
mediator  between  men  and  God.^  The  prophet's  media- 
tion is  in  the  nature  of  a  manifesto,  the  priest's  is  a  com- 
munion. The  prophet's  task  is  to  reveal  God  to  man  by 
intelligible  speech  and  message ;  the  priest's  is,  as  it  were, 
to  reveal  man  to  God,  and  the  medium  of  this  revelation 
will  often  be  that  of  emotion  set  free.  Ministers  will 
seldom  choose  deliberately  the  one  office  or  the  other. 
It  will  be  largely  a  matter  of  temperament  and  instinc- 
tive attraction.  One  will  find  himself  drawn  rather  to 
the  prophetic,  another  to  the  priestly  side  of  his  calling. 
This  will  determine  the  general  character  and  quality  of 
a  man's  ministry,  and  it  will  consequently  (in  city  con- 
gregations, where  there  is  a  variety  of  ministries  to  choose 
from)  select  for  each  his  congregation  according  to  the 
differing  temperaments  of  the  hearers.  Yet  all  ministers 
must  fulfil  both  these  offices,  and  perform  many  of  the 
functions  of  each. 

The  priest  as  mediator  between  God  and  man  in  no 
sense  stands  between  the  two  in  the  sense  of  substituting 
anything  which  he  performs  for  the  direct  communion 
of  the  soul  with  God.    Any  such  conception  of  the  priestly 

1  Peyton,  Memorabilia  of  Jesus,  ch.  v. 

2  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  claimed  for  her  priests  the 
mediatorial  function  in  a  sense  which  is  the  prerogative  of  Christ 
alone.  She  developed  the  idea  that  the  priesthood  was  to  be 
regarded  as  "the  link  between  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  and 
its  divine  Head,  and  as  the  channel  through  which  the  Holy- 
Spirit  was  communicated  to  the  world."  The  Protestant  faith 
repudiates  this  view,  teaching  on  the  one  hand  that  Jesus  Christ 
alone  is  priest,  the  only  mediator  between  God  and  man;  on 
the  other  hand  proclaiming  the  priesthood  of  all  believers.  The 
priest  or  the  prophet  can  only  be  regarded  as  mediator  in  so  far 
as  he  assists  men  in  their  efforts  at  communion  with  God. 

155 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

office  is  defective  in  its  sense  of  the  spirituality  both  of 
God  and  man.  In  the  holy  mystery  of  communion,  these 
two  must  meet  and  hold  direct  converse  one  with  the 
other.  The  priest  can  be  mediator  only  in  the  sense  of 
helping  and  stimulating  that  communion,  of  providing  it 
with  a  fitting  language,  or  of  awakening  the  desire  for  it 
where  that  has  fallen  asleep.  To  do  this  he  must  be  both 
humanist  and  churchman;  on  the  one  hand  sympatheti- 
cally aware  of  human  life  as  a  thing  which  he  not  only 
understands  but  shares,  and  on  the  other  hand  conscious 
of  himself  as  a  minister  of  divine  mysteries.  In  the 
words  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  he  is  "not  estranged 
from  human  life,  and  yet  enveloped  in  the  midst  of  it  with 
a  veil  woven  of  intermingled  brightness  and  gloom." 

The  most  characteristic  action  of  the  priest  is  the 
administration  of  the  sacraments.  In  Communion  serv- 
ices there  should  be  little  preaching,  much  prayer,  and 
considerable  spaces  of  silence.  To  this  rule  the  time- 
honoured  Scottish  custom  of  embedding  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  in  the  centre  of  a  week  of  incessant 
sermons,  and  the  prefacing  of  it  with  an  unusually  long 
and  distinctively  theological  discourse  known  as  the  Ac- 
tion Sermon,  is  certainly  an  astonishing  phenomenon. 
It  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  a  Scotsman  of  the 
old  school  was  a  born  theologian  and  lover  of  sermons. 
It  would  be  an  interesting  question,  were  it  capable  of 
receiving  an  answer,  how  much  of  all  that  immense  vol- 
ume of  preaching  and  exposition  actually  affected  his 
reception  of  the  elements.  Certainly  in  modern  days  the 
taste  of  the  Christian  community  has  turned  away  from 
the  old  custom,  and  is  more  helped  by  devotional  than  by 
intellectual  exercises  at  Communion  seasons.  On  these 
occasions  few  worshippers  desire  new  truths.  They  seek 
rather  a  selection  of  those  which  are  most  familiar,  and 
a  repetition  of  texts  and  sentences  dedicated  to  sacra- 
mental use. 

156 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

The  word  sacrament  has  a  peculiarly  interesting  his- 
tory. In  classical  Latin  it  denoted  the  oath  of  fidelity 
sworn  by  the  Roman  soldier  on  entering  the  army.  When 
it  was  taken  over  by  the  ecclesiastics  of  later  days,  it 
took  on  the  additional  meaning  of  a  mystery,  a  second 
spiritual  significance,  lying  behind  material  symbols  and 
revealed  to  the  worshipper  in  the  act  of  using  these.  So 
we  have  the  sacramentum  stellarum,  and  many  other 
such  phrases,  which  tell  of  the  mystery  of  l^fe  in  all  its 
parts,  and  the  sacramental  way  of  regarding  Nature  and 
probing  her  mystic  secrets  through  the  medium  of  things 
revealed  by  the  senses.  For  us  the  word  retains  both 
meanings.  It  is  the  oath  of  fidelity  which  the  communi- 
cant swears  to  Christ  and  to  His  Church,  and  it  is  the 
revelation  to  his  soul  of  spiritual  mysteries,  through  the 
material  symbols  of  bread  and  wine.  The  priest  is  the 
minister  of  the  sacrament,  and  it  is  his  duty  to  impress 
upon  each  communicant  the  obligation  of  honour  under 
which  he  brings  himself  by  partaking,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  suggest  to  him  something  of  those  mysteries  of 
faith  which  may  disclose  themselves,  and  to  prepare  his 
heart  to  receive  the  disclosure  in  wonder,  gratitude,  and 
reverent  response. 

Next  in  order  comes  prayer  in  the  priestly  office  of  the 
minister.  Much  has  been  written  upon  this  subject,  and 
we  can  only  touch  upon  it  here  very  briefly.  The  main 
thing  to  remember  is  that  public  prayer  is  a  function  of 
the  priestly  office  in  which  the  minister  offers  prayer  not 
for  himself  but  for  the  people.  The  custom  would  not 
exist  but  for  the  fact  that  the  worshipper  finds,  in  the 
prayers  offered  by  the  minister,  some  sort  of  spiritual 
help  and  satisfaction  different  from  that  which  he  finds 
in  private  prayer.  The  minister,  as  he  leads  the  devo- 
tions of  the  congregation,  must  always  remember  this. 
He  is  there  for  the  sake  of  the  worshipper.  He  cannot 
be  content  with  praying  for  what  he  himself  desires,  or 

157 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

for  things  that  interest  himself.  Dr.  Marcus  Dods,  in  a 
letter  written  in  his  early  preaching  days,  laments  his 
"failure  to  express  the  prayers  of  others,"  and  thereby 
shows  his  insight  into  the  heart  of  the  situation.  Many 
of  the  worshippers  desire  to  pray,  but  find  themselves 
distressed  with  the  silence  of  their  souls.  The  minister, 
in  his  prayers,  is  there  to  break  that  silence.  He  should 
so  pray  that,  in  the  weighty  words  of  Dr.  Oswald  Dykes, 
the  worshipper  should  feel  that  "it  is  himself  that  he  of- 
fers— the  wealth  of  his  redeemed  personality — his  own 
love,  his  own  will,  body  and  soul  devoted  to  do  and  to 
bear  all  the  will  of  the  Father  in  heaven." 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  we  see  clearly  that  this  part  of 
the  minister's  work  must  require  careful  preparation. 
In  a  few  men  of  quick  and  sympathetic  imagination,  the 
presence  of  the  congregation  will  inspire  suitable  thought 
and  language  in  which  to  express  their  manifold  need  and 
desire.  Yet  even  the  best  of  these  will  find  that  prayers 
which  have  not  been  in  any  measure  thought  out  before- 
hand will  inevitably  omit  some  petitions  that  ought  to 
have  been  included.  In  all  but  a  very  few,  prayers  wholly 
unconsidered  beforehand  will  tend  to  become  slovenly; 
and  no  brilliance  of  preaching  will  atone  for  the  un- 
pardonable affront  both  to  God  and  to  His  worshippers 
of  a  slovenly  prayer.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  one  must 
beware  of  any  touch  of  artificiality  in  which  the  prepara- 
tion of  prayers  will  reveal  itself.  Prayer,  public  or 
private,  is  essentially  a  spirit  and  not  an  art.  When  it 
comes  consciously  into  the  region  of  sesthetics,  it  is  at 
once  marked  with  the  brand  of  failure.  If  this  be  true, 
as  we  have  argued,  in  regard  to  the  sermon,  it  is  far  more 
deeply  true  of  the  prayers.  I  have  even  known  a  man 
who  found  that  the  thought  of  his  public  prayers  in- 
truded itself  into  his  private  devotions,  and  led  him  to 
select  an  utterance  here  and  there  as  suitable  for  the 
service  he  was  preparing  to  conduct  on  the  coming  Sun- 

158 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

day.  When  professionalism  has  gone  so  far  as  that,  it 
has  become  a  disease  that  threatens  the  Hfe  of  the  man's 
own  soul,  and  for  his  soul's  sake  he  must  be  done  with  it 
at  whatever  cost. 

Much  has  been  said  in  favour  of  a  liturgy,  which  would 
do  away  with  all  the  dangers  and  difficulties  which  we 
have  mentioned.  In  the  Liturgy  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land we  have  a  form  of  devotion  which  has  satisfied  the 
needs  and  directed  the  prayers  of  many  millions  of  wor- 
shipping men  and  women,  and  which  has  certainly  been 
one  of  the  most  priceless  gifts  of  God  to  His  Church. 
In  the  churches  which  do  not  use  that  Liturgy,  there  has 
been  of  recent  years  a  growing  movement  in  favour  of 
liturgical  worship.  Even  for  Nonconformist  churches, 
the  desire  seems  reasonable,  so  long  as  the  liturgy  is  not 
made  compulsory.  A  man's  capacity  for  fitly  leading  the 
devotions  of  a  congregation  must  largely  depend  upon  the 
varying  moods  of  his  spirit.  There  are  times  which 
come  upon  us  all  when  we  cannot  adequately  express 
ourselves  in  prayer.  These  are  not  in  our  own  control,  for 
they  vary  with  physical  as  well  as  spiritual  health,  and 
depend  upon  many  causes  to  which  we  have  no  access. 
Yet  in  most  Nonconformist  churches  the  congregations 
are  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  minister's  moods.  It 
would  seem  clear  that  in  all  our  churches  the  use  of  a 
liturgy  should  be  acknowledged  as  a  thing  permissible, 
when  the  minister  feels  that  it  would  be  more  edifying 
to  the  people,  and  more  helpful  to  their  devotions,  than 
any  impromptu  prayers  which  at  the  time  he  is  capable 
of  uttering.  If  any  Church  is  not  satisfied  with  any  of 
the  existing  liturgies,  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should 
not  compose  one  for  the  use  of  its  ministers  when  they 
feel  the  need  of  such  assistance.  Calvin  composed  a 
liturgy  for  the  Church  at  Geneva,  and  John  Knox  com- 
posed one  for  the  Church  of  Scotland.^     In  using  such 

1  The  latter  is  a  very  remarkable  service  book,  in  which  the 

159 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

aids  to  public  devotion,  we  are  but  fulfilling  the  injunction 
of  the  prophet,  "Take  with  you  words,  and  turn  to  the 
Lord."^ 

Yet  many  of  us  will  feel  that  in  the  main  the  words 
we  take  should  be  our  own.  "The  peculiar  genius  of  the 
Protestant  religion — the  free  and  joyous  spirit  inspired 
by  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  forgiveness" — naturally 
seeks  opportunity  for  spontaneous  expression ;  and  there 
are  times  when  the  preacher  would  feel  his  spirit  re- 
strained and  imprisoned  if  he  were  confined  either  to  a 
printed  liturgy  or  to  words  which  he  himself  had  written 
out  for  the  occasion.  The  occasion  itself  will  often  sug- 
gest thoughts  for  prayer  which  no  previous  study  would 
have  given.  It  will  quicken  a  man's  devotional  life  to 
new  activity  and  to  fresh  sympathy  as  he  feels  himself 
going,  in  the  company  of  his  fellow-worshippers,  into  the 
presence  of  his  God.  Most  of  us  will,  I  think,  feel  that 
we  must  leave  ourselves  free  to  receive  and  express  such 
inspiration.  I  would  suggest  that  the  ideal  for  public 
prayer  is  neither  the  verbatim  preparation  which  makes 
the  prayer  a  recital  of  a  fixed  form  of  words,  nor  the  en- 
tirely unpremeditated  speech  which  is  created  by  the 
chance  suggestions  of  the  moment.  As  in  the  sermon, 
so  in  the  prayer,  structure  is  required.  The  total  absence 
of  structure  in  any  kind  of  public  utterance  makes  that 
utterance  less  perfect  in  itself  and  far  less  impressive 
and  memorable  to  those  who  hear  it.  Structure  is  the 
result  of  orderliness  and  rationality  in  the  mind  of  the 
speaker,  and  these  qualities  are  necessary  for  prayer  as 
well  as  for  preaching.  Without  them,  our  prayers  tend 
to  double  back  upon  themselves  and  to  repeat  petitions 
and  phrases  already  used;  or  to  become  a  curious  com- 
posite mosaic  of  devout  and  familiar  phrases.  Biblical 

rugged  soul  of  its  author  reveals  wonderful  depths  of  tender- 
ness.   It  ought  to  be  familiar  to  every  preacher. 
1  Hosea  xiv.  2. 

160 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

and  otherwise — as  truly  a  liturgy  a-s  any  printed  book, 
but  a  very  inferior  liturgy.  They  tend  also  to  degenerate 
into  sentimental  meditations,  which  may  excite  or  lull  the 
feelings  without  suggesting  any  chain  of  clear  and  defi- 
nite ideas.  Such  prayers  are  not  of  a  high  order  of  de- 
votion. "What  is  it  then?"  says  St.  Paul.  "I  will  pray 
with  the  spirit,  and  I  will  pray  with  the  understanding 
also."^ 

To  secure  structure  in  our  prayers,  it  is  not  necessary 
(except  in  a  very  early  stage  of  one's  ministry)  to  prepare 
beforehand  a  single  sentence  which  we  shall  repeat  in 
them.  The  less  of  such  preparation  we  do,  the  more 
spontaneous  our  prayers  will  be.  All  that  is  necessary — 
but  this  is  indispensable — is  to  think  out  some  general 
line  along  which  our  thought  shall  move.  By  this  means 
we  shall  come  to  the  exercise  with  a  selected  and  ordered 
succession  of  thoughts,  leaving  ourselves  free  to  follow 
that  sequence  in  whatever  language,  and  with  whatever 
proportion  allotted  to  this  thought  or  that,  the  moment 
may  suggest.  Such  preparation  of  line  will  leave  us  free 
even  to  break  away  from  our  intended  sequence  if  we  feel 
moved  to  do  so.  But  the  very  act  of  arranging  one's 
ideas  into  an  ordered  sequence  will  help  to  give  structure 
to  the  prayer,  by  providing  us  with  the  memory  of  a 
proposed  arrangement  which  stands  like  an  intellectual 
conscience  in  the  background. 

A  still  more  important  point  is  the  use  of  an  indirect 
method  of  preparation.  In  regard  to  style  for  the  sermon, 
we  spoke  of  the  diligent  search  for  the  fitting  word.  That 
is  necessary,  but  it  should  have  been  supplemented  by 
the  further  suggestion  that  a  man's  style  may  come  to 
him  unconsciously,  as  a  kind  of  echo  of  the  books  he 
reads.  If  his  choice  of  books  is  good,  he*  will  find 
himself  naturally  acquiring  an  opulent  and  delicate  ear 
for  style,  so  that  the  right  word  or  phrase  comes  naturally, 

1 1  Cor.  xiv.  15. 

161 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

while  anything  offensive  jars  at  once  and  is  rejected. 
But  if  this  method  should  direct  our  choice  of  bool^s  for 
the  sermon,  it  should  be  even  more  conscientiously  used 
as  a  preparation  for  prayer.  There  is  a  language  which 
devotion  has  invented  and  perfected  for  itself,  as  the 
natural  expression  of  its  spirit  and  mood.  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  Augustine,  Molinos — these,  and  such  as  these, 
and  many  modern  masters  in  the  devotional  life — have 
clothed  themeslves  each  in  his  own  raiment.  As  they 
come  forth  from  the  ivory  palaces  of  their  prayer,  there 
is  about  their  garments  the  subtle  aroma  of  myrrh  and 
aloes  and  cassia,  of  sandal-wood  and  incense.  It  is  good, 
as  the  hour  of  service  draws  near,  to  set  aside  some  time 
in  which  to  steep  oneself  in  such  devotional  literature, 
until  one's  own  atmosphere  has  been  infected  with  its 
spiritual  breath  as  with  some  rare  essence.  This  will  in- 
directly prepare  the  spirit  to  express  itself  in  prayer,  not 
only  fittingly,  but  with  a  certain  suggestiveness  of  fasci- 
nating spiritual  things.  There  is  nothing  like  prayer  for 
teaching  a  man  to  pray.  Yet  it  sometimes  happens  that 
he  will  find  it  difficult  to  transfer  the  mood  of  prayer 
from  his  private  devotions  to  his  public  services.  Hence, 
besides  much  actual  private  prayer,  it  is  well  to  induce 
the  mood  of  prayer  by  devotional  reading  undertaken  for 
this  express  purpose. 

We  have  considered  the  sacraments  and  prayers,  offices 
peculiarly  characteristic  of  the  priest  as  such.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  priestly  idea  must  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  affect  the  sermon  also.  The  sermon  comes 
more  directly  under  the  category  of  the  prophetic  than 
of  the  priestly,  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  separate  the  functions 
too  sharply,  as  if  they  were  mutually  exclusive.  You 
are  a  priest  while  you  are  preaching  as  well  as  when  you 
pray.  A  hint  of  this  has  been  already  given  in  the  fact 
that  so  many  qualities  which  are  required  for  sermon- 
building  are  also  necessary  for  the  preparation  of  public 
prayer. 

162 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

It  is  not,  however,  chiefly  in  such  externals  that  the 
prophet  must  be  also  priest,  but  in  the  spirit  of  his  mind, 
and  his  attitude  towards  those  who  listen.  In  the  pro- 
phetic office  there  is  much  which  tends  to  isolate  the 
preacher  from  his  hearers.  It  is  his  duty  to  attack  their 
sins  and  to  lay  bare  their  unrealities  and  pettinesses.  On 
fire  with  his  scorching  truth,  he  will  be  apt  to  feel  that 
he  is  being  drawn  asunder  from  them.  If  he  discovers 
in  his  congregation  those  who  have  no  appreciation  of  his 
thoughts  and  no  interest  in  his  message,  he  is  tempted  to 
a  certain  haughtiness  characteristic  of  some  pulpits.  It 
is  as  if  he  drew  his  garments  about  him  in  scorn,  and  flung 
his  truths  at  them  in  a  manner  which  seemed  to  invite 
them  to  turn  this  over  in  what  they  call  their  minds. 
"To  go  preach  to  the  first  passer-by,"  exclaims  Montaigne, 
"to  become  tutor  to  the  ignorance  of  the  first  I  meet,  is  a 
thing  I  abhor."  Few  of  us  will  make  much  of  our  min- 
istry if  we  engage  in  it  in  that  spirit.  A  preacher  must 
address  his  people  as  a  friend  first,  and  only  afterwards 
as  a  critic.  He  must  believe  that  his  message  is  welcome, 
and  never  begin  his  work  with  even  a  touch  of  scorn. 
The  common  people  heard  Jesus  gladly,  and  the  reason 
was  that  His  preaching  had  its  home  in  the  hearts  of  the 
common  people.  So  must  our  message  come  forth  to 
them  as  soniething  which  has  its  home  in  their  hearts. 

All  this  becomes  more  evident  when  we  recollect  to 
how  large  an  extent  the  preacher's  message  is  actually 
given  to  him  by  his  hearers.  In  considering  the  preacher 
as  prophet,  we  shall  see  that  his  message  is  a  truth  or  a 
set  of  truths  which,  out  of  the  general  mass  of  his  ex- 
perience and  study,  has  risen  up  into  greater  clearness 
than  the  rest  and  shone  forth.  What  is  it  that  determines 
this  process,  selecting  the  truths  which  shall  thus  rise 
into  messages?  In  very  many  cases  it  is  done  by  the  in- 
fluence of  the  audience,  and  by  the  preacher's  contact 
with  their  minds.    If  the  preacher,  when  he  is  not  preach- 

163 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

ing,  makes  opportunities  for  mingling  with  his  people  and 
talking  over  things  with  them — things  that  interest  them, 
whether  in  books  or  in  actual  life — he  will  discover  the 
problems  both  of  faith  and  character  which  constitute 
their  difficulties.  If  he  have  the  true  spirit  of  the  priest, 
these  points  will  find  their  way  into  his  preaching  before 
long.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  any  better  princi- 
ple of  guidance  in  choosing  subjects  than  this.  A  min- 
istry that  moves  from  point  to  point  of  thought  which 
has  emerged  from  intercourse  with  men,  and  cleared  itself 
into  a  succession  of  definite  messages  in  the  minister's 
own  mind,  is  an  ideal  ministry.  All  the  range  of  truth 
may  thus  be  given  to  a  minister,  and  it  will  be  truth 
blended  with  pity  and  understanding  and  aflFection.  Our 
sense  of  men's  danger,  our  compassion  for  their  perplex- 
ity, our  desire  to  save  their  souls,  all  tend  to  die  out  in  a 
comfortable  routine  of  church  work.  Give  your  hearers 
much  opportunity  for  keeping  these  things  near  to  your 
heart,  and  so  inspiring  you  with  the  messages  which  most 
they  need.  We  shall  presently  return  to  this  subject  of 
human  sympathy  and  its  value  for  preaching. 

Meanwhile  a  side-issue,  which  is  nevertheless  a  matter 
of  importance  as  well  as  interest,  emerges  here.  Admit- 
ting the  priestly  element  of  human  sympathy,  and  the  part 
it  plays  in  the  various  details  of  every  service,  how  can  its 
ends  be  most  effectively  served  in  the  conception  and 
construction  of  the  service  as  a  whole?  For  the  service 
must  have  structure  as  much  as  the  sermon  or  the  prayers. 
Some  plan  or  other  must  run  through  it  from  first  to 
last,  making  of  it  a  unity  which  the  worshippers  may 
recognise  and  appreciate.  There  are  two  opposed  ideals 
for  the  structure  of  a  service.  One  is,  that  in  each  service 
an  attempt  shall  be  made  to  satisfy  all  the  varying  re- 
ligious needs  of  the  people  then  and  there  assembled. 
For  this  end,  hymns  or  psalms  are  sung  expressing  widely 
different  moods.     The  prayers  exhibit  the  same  catho- 

164 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

licity.  The  readings  from  Scripture  are  chosen  on  the 
same  principle,  each  for  its  own  special  truth,  and  the 
sermon  stands  apart  from  all,  bearing  its  independent 
message.  There  is  much  that  can  be  said  in  favour  of 
this  method,  and  it  will  always  commend  itself  to  certain 
types  of  mind  as  the  only  adequate  and  even  tolerable 
one.  Yet  I  confess  that  in  this  I  am  a  heretic,  and  grow 
more  obstinate  in  my  heresy  as  I  grow  older.  Against 
even  such  weighty  authority  as  that  of  Dr.  Oswald  Dykes, 
who  vigorously  maintains  this  method  against  its  rival, 
I  cannot  adopt  it.  The  other  ideal  for  the  structure  of  a 
single  service  is  that  it  shall  be  dominated  by  one  subject 
throughout  all  its  parts.  This  is  not  to  say  that  the  ser- 
mon shall  dominate  the  service,  and  draw  every  other  item 
into  line  with  itself.  It  is  the  subject  which  ought  to 
dominate  the  sermon,  the  prayers,  the  reading,  and  the 
song.  This  will  not  apply  directly  to  the  intercessory 
prayer,  which  must  by  its  very  nature  express  a  wide  cir- 
cle of  human  conditions.  Even  there,  however,  there  will 
be  a  certain  influence  exerted  by  the  subject  of  the  serv- 
ice, which  will  attract  from  the  infinite  variety  of  possible 
objects  of  petition  those  which  are  specially  cognate  to 
itself.  In  every  other  detail  of  the  service  there  will  be 
an  evident  and  intentional  relevance  to  the  main  subject. 
The  chief  objection  to  this  method  is  the  one-sidedness 
of  the  service  which  it  will  produce.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
sermon,  so  here,  that  one-sidedness  must  be  counterbal- 
anced by  other  services  which  will  lay  emphasis  on  other 
aspects  of  truth.  My  conviction  is  that  the  bane  of  all 
our  work  is  the  distracted  and  discursive  thinking  upon  re- 
ligious things  which  is  the  habit  of  so  very  many  of  those 
to  whom  we  preach.  I  am  thinking  of  the  cumulative 
effect  of  the  service  upon  the  minds  and  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  the  worshippers.  A  service  so  catholic  as  to 
embrace  all,  or  even  a  large  variety,  of  religious  types  of 
experience,  will  be  likely  to  leave  as  its  result  a  vaguer 

165 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

and  more  confused  impression,  than  one  which,  in  every 
part  of  it,  drives  home  and  enlarges  upon  one  aspect  of 
truth  chosen  for  the  occasion.  The  latter  will  be  a  clear 
unity  of  thought,  and  it  will  be  remembered  as  such.  It 
may  be  replied  that  the  communication  of  thought  is  only 
one  function  of  the  service,  and  that  this  method  will  im- 
poverish the  worship  in  its  endeavour  to  secure  a  rational 
unity.  But  there  are  many  lines  of  thought  along  which 
one  can  worship,  and  there  is  nothing  which  must  neces- 
sarily hamper  worship,  in  the  selection  of  cognate  rather 
than  diverse  lines. 

For  the  priestly  as  for  the  prophetic  work  of  the 
preacher  there  is  one  quality  which  is  absolutely  indispen- 
sable, the  quality  of  a  high  and  consecrated  imagination. 
This  will  appear  perpetually  in  the  remaining  portion  of 
these  lectures.  In  the  present  connection,  the  value  of 
imagination  lies  in  its  providing  us  with  a  means  of  escape 
from  our  own  narrow  circle  of  personal  experiences  and 
thoughts,  that  we  may  enter  sympathetically  into  both  the 
divine  and  the  human  regions  between  which  we  stand 
for  the  help  of  men.  Imagination,  both  in  preaching  and 
in  life,  has  been  denounced  by  some  writers  as  a  danger- 
ous gift,  the  enemy  of  studious  application  to  the  tasks 
of  the  college  days,  and  a  chief  source  of  sensual  tempta- 
tion. Such  writers  might  have  gone  one  step  farther,  and 
warned  us  against  life  itself.  No  living  man  is  half  so 
safe  either  from  wandering  thoughts  or  from  the  lusts 
of  the  flesh  as  a  dead  man  is.  And  the  suppression  of 
imagination  is  in  fact  the  death  of  the  spirit.  The  man 
who  has  suppressed  his  imagination,  is  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  an  automaton,  wonderfully  contrived  to  perform 
mechanically  the  actions  of  a  lifetime.  For  my  part,  I 
have  always  felt  that  if  I  had  to  die,  I  would  rather  die 
outright  and  be  done  with  it,  than  go  on  my  way  in  the 
untoward  fashion  of  a  walking  corpse.  I  remember  hear- 
ing a  preacher  of  exceptionally  powerful  intellect  say  that 

166 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

imagination  is  just  the  Latin  word  for  bunkum.  Yet  it  is 
precisely  this  contempt  for  imagination  that  may  keep 
back  some  of  us  from  attaining  the  supreme  places  of 
our  lives. 

Imagination  enters  into  every  part  of  the  activity  of 
man's  spirit.  I  once  asked  a  professor  of  mathematics, 
whose  works  are  among  the  modern  classics  in  their  sub- 
ject, what  was  the  quality  which  was  most  essential 
to  a  mathematician,  and  he  answered,  Imagination.  With- 
out it,  science  and  art  would  be  equally  impossible,  history 
would  be  but  a  date-book,  and  geography  a  catalogue  of 
names  in  foreign  tongues.  Above  all  other  men  the 
preacher  must  possess  and  cultivate  it.  Even  for  his 
sermon-building  it  is  an  absolute  necessity.  Without  it 
he  cannot  even  read  a  passage  of  Scripture  decently  or 
tell  a  story  to  the  children.  If  he  would  make  his  text 
interesting  at  the  outset  of  his  discourse,  he  must  apply 
imagination  to  it  and  to  its  context,  reconstructing  them 
as  they  actually  were  in  their  day.  One  of  the  most 
brilHant  exponents  of  dramatic  art  in  England  tells  us: 
"My  experiences  convinced  me  that  an  actor  must  imagine 
first  and  observe  afterwards.  It  is  no  good  observing  life 
and  bringing  the  result  to  the  stage  without  selection, 
without  a  definite  idea.  The  idea  must  come  first,  the 
realism  afterwards."  The  same  principle  applies  to  the 
conception  of  sermons  in  the  preacher's  mind. 

Thus  in  sermon-building  imagination  will  play  an  im- 
portant part.  But  far  beyond  that,  in  the  priestly  office 
of  the  preacher,  imagination  must  be  his  guide  and  pio- 
neer. He  stands  between  heaven  and  earth,  that  he  may 
help  men  to  express  themselves  to  God,  and  bring  the 
love  of  God  to  bear  upon  all  the  incidents  of  their  daily 
life.  For  this  he  must  have  an  imagination  of  heavenly 
things — a  "realising  sense"  of  them,  as  the  divines  of 
former  days  used  to  put  it.  He  must  be  familiar,  not 
with  the  ways  of  God  only,  or  His  laws,  but  with  Him- 

167 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

self ;  and  must  walk  freely,  and  as  one  at  home,  along  the 
friendly  streets  of  heaven.  He  must  be  equally  familiar 
with  humanity  and  its  throbbing  life.  He  must  go  where 
men  are,  and  put  himself  into  their  place.  Thus  imagina- 
tion, roving  both  high  and  low,  must  lead  him  in  a  double 
comradeship,  a  sympathetic  and  understanding  fellowship, 
alike  with  God  and  men. 

The  divine  element  in  imagination  is  the  first  necessity 
for  the  priest.  It  has  been  well  said  that  the  first  qualifi- 
cation for  the  Christian  minister  is  that  he  has  seen  Christ 
for  himself  and  has  been  able  to  maintain  the  steady 
vision  of  Him;  while  the  second  qualification  is  that  he 
has  power  to  make  other  people  see  Him.  The  former  is 
undoubtedly  the  first  and  fundamental  necessity.  The 
imagination  of  God,  the  power  to  realise  and  conceive 
of  Him  clearly  and  intimately,  the  sense  of  a  direct  and 
personal  relation  between  the  soul  and  His  divine  Spirit — 
these  are  absent  from  no  true  minister's  experience.  Our 
credentials  of  priesthood  lie  not  in  any  ordination,  but  in 
the  consciousness  of  God  achieved  in  our  own  dedicated 
personality,  and  in  the  sense  that  God  has  called  us  to 
this  office  for  the  sake  of  others.  Although  the  priestly 
office  is  no  longer  mediatorial  in  the  Old  Testament  sense, 
yet  it  still  retains  the  sacredness  of  a  divine  appointment 
and  gift.  "And  I,  behold,  I  have  taken  your  brethren 
the  Levites  from  among  the  children  of  Israel:  to  you 
they  are  given  as  a  gift  for  the  Lord,  to  do  the  service 
of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation.  ...  I  have  given 
your  priest's  office  unto  you  as  a  service  of  gift."^  In 
like  manner  the  minister  is  given  to  the  people  as  a  gift 
to  them  by  God,  and  his  office  is  similarly  given  by  God 
to  the  minister. 

If  this  be  so,  it  must  be  his  first  duty  to  cultivate  "the 
style  and  manners  of  the  sky."  He  must  acquaint  him- 
self continually  with  God,  and  let  his  imagination  play 

1  Numbers  xviii.  6,  7. 

168 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

upon  heavenly  things,  until  they  have  become  to  him  in- 
tensest  realities.  He  must  be  expert  in  the  knowledge 
of  God  and  of  the  spiritual  life.  "Come  ye  after  Me," 
says  Christ,  "and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men.'*  We 
are  apt,  as  was  said  by  one  who  had  much  experience  in 
evangelistic  work,  to  go  chiefly  after  the  men  we  hope  to 
win,  thinking  that  the  first  thing  required  of  us  is  to 
share  their  favourite  pursuits  and  meet  them  in  comrade- 
ship. Such  comradeship  is  excellent  and  necessary,  but 
the  real  secret  of  winning  men  is  to  go  after  Christ.  He 
who  does  so  will  not  fail  to  win  men.  There  is  something 
irresistible  to  men  about  the  personality  of  one  whose 
spirit  dwells  much  in  heavenly  places.  There  is  a  cer- 
tainty in  his  utterances  about  divine  things  which  cannot 
be  forged  or  imitated.  And  it  is  just  that  certainty  which 
men  most  desire  in  their  religious  guide.  They  are,  in 
the  deep  hearts  of  them,  wistful  for  those  things  with 
which  he  is  familiar;  they  are  home-sick  for  the  region 
which  is  manifestly  his  spirit's  home. 

In  illustration  of  this,  it  may  be  worth  our  while  to 
consider  for  a  moment  the  interesting  subject  of  the  con- 
fessional. The  Protestant  Church,  or  at  least  all  churches 
which  desire  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  Protestant,  has 
discarded  this  institution  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
The  grounds  on  which  this  was  done  are  well  known,  and 
they  amply  justify  the  abolition.  The  power  of  absolution 
upon  which  the  practice  rests,  is,  in  our  belief,  one  which 
was  never  delegated  by  Christ  to  any  of  His  ministers, 
and  our  hope  of  salvation  is  bound  up  with  the  assurance 
that  He  has  retained  it  for  Himself.  The  abuses  to  which 
the  practice  has  led,  and  to  which  it  must  always  remain 
liable,  are  in  themselves  a  sufficient  reason  for  its  disuse. 
And  yet  the  wonder  is  not  that  the  confessional  was  a 
popular  institution  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  but 
that  the  Reformers  had  faith  and  courage  enough  to 
abolish  it.     A  burdened  conscience  is  the  loneliest  thing 

169 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

on  earth,  and  the  relief  of  confession  to  a  fellow-man  is 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  all  comforts.    So  it  has  come 
to  pass  that  while  confession  has  disappeared  from  the 
Protestant  Church  as  an  institution,  it  has  survived  as  a 
practice.    And  those  who  hear  most  confessions  are  not 
the    good-humoured    men    who    "spare    skin    surface, 
smoothening  truth  away."    They  are  generally  those  who 
are  most  faithful  in  deahng  with  the  sins  confessed.    But 
they  are  always  those  who  are  felt  to  be  intimate  with 
God,  familiar  friends  of  Christ.     For  the  soul  of  a  true 
penitent  is  generally  strangely  wise.     It  crieth  out  after 
the  living  God,  and  the  help  it  seeks  in  confession  is  help 
towards  Him.    It  may  be  added  that,  apart  from  the  con- 
fession of  sin,  it  was  found  in  the  war  that  the  mystic 
experiences  which  were  described  in  a   former  lecture 
brought  men  to  their  chaplains  and  religious  guides,  that 
they  might  get  some  interpretation  of  that  spiritual  world 
which  had  opened  to  them  in  such  unintelligible  glimpses. 
All  this  lays  upon  the  minister  who  would  be  in  any 
degree  adequate  to  his  priestly  office,  the  demand  for  a 
high  and  constant  "practice  of  the  presence  of  God."    It 
is  a  costly  demand  and  an  exacting  one,  but  it  is  absolute. 
A  low  spiritual  condition  in  a  minister,  means  an  irrepara- 
ble loss  to  his  congregation,  and  to  the  world  in  which  he 
lives.     For  their  sakes  he  must  sanctify  himself ;  which 
means  not  only  that  he  must  be  holy,  but  that  he  must 
regard  himself  as  holy,  and  habitually  live  on  the  plat- 
form of  the  ideal  towards  which  he  strives.    He  must  be 
conscious  of  himself  as  the  minister  of  divine  mysteries, 
the   bringer   of   divine   reconciliations,   the   assistant   at 
divine  communions.    He  must  not  become  so  accustomed 
to  such  priestly  offices  as  to  take  them  for  granted  as 
ordinary  things.      His  priesthood   must  never  cease   to 
surprise  him,  nor  must  he  ever  for  an  hour  lose  the  sense 
of  its  wonder. 

But  the  Christian  minister,  in  his  priestly  office,  is  never 

170 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

merely  an  individual  helper  of  his  fellow-men  in  spiritual 
things ;  he  is  also  a  churchman.  He  is  the  representa- 
tive of  the  religious  community  as  well  as  of  the  in- 
dividual members  of  that  community.  There  is,  there- 
fore, what  may  be  called  a  church  consciousness  in  all 
the  relations  between  him  and  them.  In  his  prayers,  he 
is  the  minister  of  the  altar,  not  only  for  this  worshipper 
and  that.  He  is  sending  out  the  cry  of  the  Body  of 
Christ  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Father.  This  is  an  aspect  of 
the  religious  life  which  ought  to  be  impressed  emphati- 
cally upon  all  the  members  of  our  congregations.  Of  re- 
cent years,  especially  in  Nonconformist  communities,  the 
idea  of  the  Church  has  suffered  some  disparagement.  In 
all  democratic  institutions  there  is  the  danger  of  the  indi- 
vidual assuming  too  much  importance  and  the  community 
too  little.  But  the  Church  is  not  only  a  great  spiritual 
unity,  comprising  in  itself  the  entire  body  of  believing 
men  and  women  on  earth  and  in  heaven ;  it  is  a  divine  in- 
stitution, which  an  apostle  did  not  hesitate  to  describe  as 
the  body  of  Christ.  The  individual  believer,  "by  his  faith 
in  Christ,  includes  himself  in  the  community  of  be- 
lievers." That  community  is  the  home  and  the  guardian 
of  our  mystic  faith,  and  the  minister  is,  by  his  ordination, 
one  of  its  appointed  officers.  He  should  not  forget  or 
ignore  this  fact.  He  cannot  be  blind  to  the  value  of  many 
religious  institutions  which  are  outside  the  Church's  pale. 
He  may  welcome  them,  co-operate  with  them  so  far  as 
that  is  in  his  power,  thank  God  for  them  and  for  the 
service  they  are  rendering;  yet,  as  for  himself,  he  is  a 
churchman,  a  believer  in  the  reality  and  the  potency 
of  the  Church  as  the  chief  agent  of  Christian  religion  in 
the  world.  The  more  loyal  he  is  to  her,  the  more  power- 
ful for  permanent  good  will  his  ministry  prove. 

He  will  be  loyal  also  to  his  denomination.  Just  as  the 
best  guarantee  for  a  true  cosmopolitanism  is  a  hearty 
patriotism,  so  the  best  way  of  showing  reverence  for  the 

171 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

general  Church  of  Christ  is  to  identify  oneself  with  that 
particular  branch  of  it  within  which  one's  lot  is  cast. 
Yet  the  priest  least  of  all  has  the  right  to  be  a  sectarian 
in  any  narrow  or  exclusive  sense.  His  office,  with  its 
double  connection  with  God  and  men,  must  surely  pre- 
serve him  from  any  such  temptation,  for  the  human  needs 
to  which  he  especially  ministers  are  as  wide  as  humanity 
itself,  and  the  divine  mercy  of  which  he  is  the  bearer 
is  wider  still.  One  of  the  great  anomalies  of  Christen- 
dom is  the  denominationalism  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  The  ideal  of  the  Roman  priesthood,  with  all 
its  errors,  is  yet  an  ideal  full  of  human  understanding 
and  compassion;  but  the  exclusive  claims  of  the  Roman 
Church  have  made  her  priests  the  representatives  of  the 
narrowest  of  all  religious  sects.  A  similar  fate  must  be- 
fall all  churches  whose  denominational  loyalties  degener- 
ate into  an  exclusive  claim.  In  the  war  such  claims  were 
pilloried  in  all  their  littleness  and  all  their  absurdity. 
Under  the  very  guns,  and  face  to  face  with  death,  there 
were  men  who  found  themselves  unable  to  escape  from 
the  prison-house  of  their  intolerable  creed,  and  stories 
of  them  provided  amusement  for  many  a  mess.  There 
was  the  padre — real  or  imaginary — who  spoke  so  of  his 
church  that  an  officer  exclaimed,  "Why,  Padre,  I  do  be- 
lieve you  think  that  your  church  is  the  only  way  to 
heaven."  To  which  the  reply  was,  "Oh,  no,  I  wouldn't 
say  that  exactly,  but  certainly  there  is  no  other  way  by 
which  any  gentleman  would  think  of  going."    There  were 

the  four  corpses  of .     One  was  a  Presbyterian,  the 

next  an  Episcopalian,  the  next  a  Jew,  and  the  fourth 
a  Roman  Catholic.  They  lay  waiting  in  the  mortuary  for 
burial,  the  times  of  their  respective  services  being  fixed 
with  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  interval  between  each.  By 
some  misunderstanding,  the  first  padre  came  at  the  end 
instead  of  the  beginning.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
Episcopalian  buried  the  Presbyterian,  the  Jew  buried  the 

172 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

Episcopalian,  the  Roman  Catholic  buried  the  Jew,  and  the 
Presbyterian  buried  the  Roman  Catholic.  It  would  not 
be  edifying  to  put  on  record  the  speculations  of  the  mess- 
room  as  to  what  happened  on  the  other  side  in  connec- 
tion with  these  perplexing  ceremonies.  In  such  instances 
— and  many  such  occurred — the  arrogance  of  sectarian- 
ism, with  its  nulla  salus  extra  ecclesiam,  was  simply 
laughed  out  of  court.  More  and  more  the  exclusiveness 
and  prejudice  with  which  men  of  various  churches  came 
out,  were  toned  down  and  softened.  In  many  cases  they 
vanished  altogether.  At  the  conferences  of  padres  and 
the  meetings  of  Y.  M.  C.  A.  leaders,  sectarian  divisions 
melted  like  ice  in  springtime,  and  all  but  a  few  extremists 
acknowledged  their  oneness  with  kindred  spirits,  in  the 
greater  unity  of  common  suffering  and  service.  The 
fierce  light  of  the  war  showed  all  such  questions  in  their 
true  proportions,  correcting  their  superficial  and  trifling 
claims  with  the  dire  facts  of  sacrifice  and  love  and  death. 
The  conviction  which  our  experience  of  the  war  con- 
firmed in  many  of  us  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,  was 
that  denomination  is  essentially  a  question  of  tempera- 
ment. In  those  whose  sectarian  zeal  runs  off  into  bigotry, 
it  is  a  case  of  temperament  masquerading  as  conviction. 
To  the  end  of  time  there  will  be  some  who  find  in  one 
church,  and  others  who  find  in  another  church,  the  way 
of  worship  most  congenial  to  their  natural  temperament, 
and  therefore  most  helpful  to  their  religious  life.  So 
there  will  always  be  Protestants  and  Catholics,  Episco- 
palians and  Nonconformists.  It  is  entirely  impossible  for 
any  sect  to  convince  the  world  that  it  alone  has  legitimate 
historic  continuity  with  the  early  Christian  Church,  and 
so  with  Jesus  and  the  apostles.  Nor,  if  such  a  claim 
could  be  established,  would  it  be  valid  in  face  of  new  de- 
velopments. If,  in  the  evolution  of  social  and  religious 
history,  types  of  religious  experience  have  emerged  for 
which  the  historic  Church  fails  to  provide,  if  there  are 

173 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

needs  which  it  cannot  meet,  then  most  certainly  in  God's 
providence  a  Church  will  arise  which  does  meet  those 
needs,  and  the  religious  efficiency  of  such  a  Church  will 
be  its  charter  of  validity  as  a  true  part  of  the  Church  of 
Christ.  Nor  is  this  view  in  any  way  incompatible  with 
denominational  loyalty.  It  is  surely  a  truer  loyalty  to 
one's  denomination  to  make  men  love  it  for  its  catholicity 
of  outlook  upon  other  sects,  than  to  make  them  hate  it  for 
its  spiritual  arrogance,  and  its  claim  to  be  the  exclusive 
channel  of  grace  even  to  those  who  do  not  find  it  a  channel 
of  grace  at  all.  Certainly  the  war  led  some  of  us  to  feel 
very  strongly  about  these  things.  In  the  light  of  battle, 
denominational  propaganda  appeared  criminal  rather  than 
merely  petty:  in  the  darkness  of  wards  where  wounded 
men  lay  dying,  sectarian  exclusiveness  seemed  terribly 
like  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost. 

We  have  been  considering  the  divine  side  of  the  priest's 
equipment,  and  the  necessity  for  imagination  of  that  side. 
Not  less  urgent  is  the  demand  for  strong  and  clear  imagi- 
nation of  the  human  side — in  other  words,  for  genuine 
and  active  human  sympathy.  The  mere  prophet  may  be  a 
recluse,  but  that  the  priest  can  never  be.  The  main  object 
of  preaching  is,  as  we  have  seen,  appeal;  but  appeal 
implies  a  loving  understanding  of  those  to  whom  we  are 
appealing,  which  will  make  our  appeal  a  piece  of  genuine 
human  friendship.  It  is  felt  about  some  preachers  that 
"Never  dares  the  man  put  off  the  prophet."  The  dignified 
aloofness  of  the  preacher  is  the  worst  enemy  of  his  ef- 
fectiveness. It  leads  him  to  misjudge  men,  to  see  them 
in  the  light  only  of  their  sins  and  not  of  their  temptations, 
and  to  treat  those  sins  with  scorn  and  sneering,  or  at  least 
with  scolding  and  denunciation.  In  his  commentary  on 
Isaiah  Iviii.,  Dr.  George  Adam  Smith  deals  with  this  mat- 
ter. "Perhaps  no  subject  more  readily  provokes  to  satire 
and  sneers  than  the  subject  of  the  chapter — the  union  of 
formal  religion  and  unlovely  life.    And  yet  in  the  chapter 

174 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

there  is  not  a  sneer  from  first  to  last.  The  speaker  sup- 
presses the  temptation  to  use  his  nasal  tones,  and  utters, 
not  as  the  satirist,  but  as  the  prophet.  For  his  purpose  is 
not  to  sport  with  his  people's  hypocrisy,  but  to  sweep  them 
out  of  it.  Before  he  has  done,  his  urgent  speech,  that  has 
not  lingered  to  sneer  nor  exhausted  itself  in  screaming, 
passes  forth  to  spend  its  unchecked  impetus  upon  final 
promise  and  gospel.  It  is  a  wise  lesson  from  a  master 
preacher,  and  half  of  the  fruitlessness  of  modern  preach- 
ing is  due  to  the  neglect  of  it.  The  pulpit  tempts  men  to  be 
either  too  bold  or  too  timid  about  sin ;  either  to  whisper  or 
to  scold ;  to  emphasise  or  to  exaggerate ;  to  be  conventional 
or  hysterical.  But  two  things  are  necessary — the  facts 
must  be  stated,  and  the  whole  manhood  of  the  preacher, 
and  not  only  his  scorn  or  only  his  anger,  or  only  an  official 
temper,  brought  to  bear  upon  them."^  Last  year  there 
came  into  my  possession  a  little  volume  of  verse  composed 
by  a  wandering  minstrel  who  was  formerly  a  familiar 
figure  in  the  villages  and  towns  of  Deeside.  There  is  a 
certain  rough  genius  in  the  songs,  and  a  very  frank  and 
winsome  fellowship  with  humanity  in  its  poorer  walks. 
But  against  the  clergy  the  singer's  bitterness  is  vitriolic, 
and  every  reference  to  them  is  a  protest  against  either 
the  cruelty  of  their  preaching  of  hell,  or  the  selfishness 
of  their  lives.  There  is  much  in  the  poetry  of  Robert 
Burns  to  the  same  effect.  The  unfairness  of  such  at- 
tacks is  evident  enough.  Yet  that  which  lies  behind  them 
is  the  idea  that  ministers  are  not  only  remote  from  human 
life,  but  that  from  their  superior  station  they  are  taking 
sides  against  men.  Dr.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  has  given 
expression  to  the  same  sentiment  in  a  very  bold  and  forci- 
ble passage.  Describing  certain  preachers  of  great  learn- 
ing and  ability,  he  notes  the  fact  that  their  ministry  was 
never  very  fruitful,  and  he  gives  his  opinion  as  to  the 
reason  for  this.  It  is  "that  their  sympathy  ran  almost 
1  The  Book  of  Isaiah,  xl.-lxvi.,  p.  417. 

175 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

exclusively  toward  God.  They  were  on  God's  side  alto- 
gether. They  were  always  vindicating  God.  They  were 
upholding  the  divine  government.  And  they  produced, 
if  I  may  say  so,  the  feeling  that  they  were  God's  attorneys, 
that  they  were  special  pleaders  on  that  side.  .  .  .  They 
failed  because  they  had  too  exclusive  a  sympathy  with 
God."^ 

There  was  no  feature  of  the  war  more  marked  than 
the  wealth  of  human  sympathy  which  it  generated. 
There,  if  the  preacher  were  to  have  any  chance  at  all,  he 
must  be  very  little  of  the  parson  and  very  much  of  the 
man.  The  conditions  were  peculiar,  and  in  many  respects 
unprecedented  in  the  lives  of  those  who  preached  to  sol- 
diers in  the  field.  The  one  thing  needful  was  sympathy, 
and  its  springs  were  opened  most  abundantly.  I  knew 
one  preacher  who  had  broken  down  under  the  strain. 
Standing  on  the  platform  of  a  street-car  in  one  of  the 
bases,  he  found  himself  side  by  side  with  a  soldier  laden 
with  all  his  kit,  on  his  way  to  an  outlying  hospital.  Very 
wearily  and  bitterly  the  boy  said  to  him,  "I'm  on  the 
scrap-heap"  :  but  when  the  preacher  answered,  "So  am  I," 
they  became  old  friends  on  the  spot.  I  myself,  late  one 
night  in  a  receiving-tent  for  walking  wounded,  found  a 
lad  utterly  exhausted  with  wounds  and  drenched  with 
rain.  Nothing  would  induce  him  to  touch  the  tea  that  had 
been  given  him,  nor  to  sign  a  post  card  to  his  friends. 
After  many  attempts,  I  discovered  at  last  that  his  home 
was  on  the  banks  of  a  familiar  stream  in  the  Scottish 
Lowlands.  Pool  by  pool  I  fished  that  stream  for  him,  now 
landing  a  trout,  then  missing  a  grayling,  changing  flies 
and  shortening  or  lengthening  the  line.  The  transforma- 
tion was  one  of  the  most  wonderful  memories  of  my  life, 
and  soon  he  was  enjoying  a  hearty  meal  and  writing  his 
post  card  with  smiles  and  laughter.  Of  one  dying  boy 
I  knew — and  his  was  not  the  only  case — whose  last  re- 

"^  Lectures  on  Preaching,  first  series,  pp.  AS,  49. 

176 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

quest  was  to  the  chaplain  at  his  bedside  that  he  would 
kiss  him  before  he  died. 

The  secret  of  the  extraordinary  success  of  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  in  the  war  was  mainly  this.  It  regained  humanity  in 
religion,  first  for  itself  and  then  for  countless  thousands 
of  those  to  whom  it  ministered.  It  showed  an  almost  in- 
stinctive power  of  attracting  to  itself  as  workers,  men  and 
women  who  were  gifted  with  a  positive  genius  for  just 
being  human.  Some  of  these  spoke  so  familiai^ly  of  God, 
and  understood  so  exactly  the  feelings  of  a  soldier's  heart, 
that  rough  boys  would  say  of  them  in  a  kind  of  awed 
yet  affectionate  whisper,  that  they  "lived  in  heaven.'* 
Such  workers  never  found  it  difficult  to  bring  in  the  sub- 
ject of  religion.  They  began  with  the  fighting  or  the 
march,  and  by  swift  degrees  the  conversation  slid  back 
to  the  distant  home  across  the  sea,  and  then,  before  one 
could  realise  it,  to  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  The  counter 
of  the  canteen  did  it.  If  you  went  into  a  group  of  khaki 
in  the  hut  and  began  at  once  to  talk  familiarly,  you  were 
apt  to  feel  an  awkwardness  about  the  situation,  and  such 
attempts  would  sometimes  fail.  So  it  came  about  that 
preachers  and  lecturers  often  found  it  wisest  to  spend 
a  little  time  before  or  after  speaking  in  selling  at  the 
counter.  No  doubt  they  sometimes  sold  in  ignorance 
of  the  current  prices,  and  brought  confusion  to  the  book- 
keeping of  the  leader.  But  it  was  a  thousand  times  worth 
its  cost.  There  is  but  one  way  of  reaching  a  man's  sym- 
pathy, and  that  is  to  go  where  he  lives,  and  put  your- 
self in  his  place.  So  this  much-discussed  business  of  sell- 
ing tea  and  food  and  little  luxuries  to  men  weary  and 
hungry  and  thirsty,  was  in  itself  essentially  religious 
work,  apart  from  its  opportunities  for  speech  upon  re- 
ligious things.  Often,  in  the  dim  light  of  the  lamp  that 
swung  from  the  rafters  of  a  hut,  I  have  come  in  out  of 
the  night,  and  seen  those  men  and  women  handing  out 
such  comforts  to  the  men.    To  me  it  seemed  as  if  they 

177 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

were  the  priests  of  the  living  God,  and  the  things  they 
handled  were  sacramental  elements.  And  I  seemed  to 
hear  a  voice  behind  them  saying,  "I  was  hungry  and  ye 
gave  Me  meat,  thirsty  and  ye  gave  Me  drink.  Inasmuch 
as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it  unto 
Me." 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  new  era  has  dawned  upon  our 
church  life,  in  which  we  shall  be  able  to  gather  young 
men  about  us  at  home  as  we  gathered  them  on  the  field. 
There  is  room  for  such  work  in  most  congregations.  Is 
it  too  much  to  hope  that  huts  may  be  erected  or  halls 
opened,  beside  great  numbers  of  churches,  in  which  men 
and  women  who  have  learned  their  lesson  in  the  war  will 
still  "carry  on"  ?  It  is  very  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  this 
problem  will  not  prove  too  difficult  for  the  ingenuity  of 
Christian  people,  and  that  the  link  formed  between  the 
Church  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  will  not  be  broken.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  real  division  between  the  two  agencies.  The 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  the  Church,  in  one  of  its  most  important 
departments.  It  was  created,  it  is  financed,  and  it  is 
manned  mainly  by  the  Church,  through  its  members.  It 
offers  to  the  Church  the  wonderful  wealth  of  new  ex- 
perience and  new  talent  it  has  gained.  If  that  offer  is 
understood  and  accepted,  it  may  yet  prove  to  be  the  con- 
necting link  between  the  Church  and  those  at  her  gates  to 
whom  hitherto  she  has  had  least  access. 

But  for  us  ministers  of  churches,  the  lesson  of  all  this 
is  primarily  a  lesson  in  human  sympathy.  May  I  make 
a  digression  here,  to  note  one  department  of  our  work 
which  offers  us  endless  opportunities  for  having  that 
sympathy  drawn  out?  I  refer  to  our  preaching  to  chil- 
dren. This  is  not  really  a  digression,  for  it  was  precisely 
the  childlikeness  of  the  spirit  of  the  soldier  which  made 
the  opportunities  of  the  war.  The  children  in  our 
churches  are  the  great  humanisers  of  congregational  life. 
It  is  they  who  keep  the  spirit  both  of  the  preacher  and  the 

178 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

congregation  young.  That  is  an  inestimable  service,  for 
there  is  really  no  necessity  for  anyone  to  lose  the  freshness 
of  his  childhood,  although  it  is  too  often  lost.  I  wish 
I  could  impress  upon  you  with  sufficient  earnestness  the 
sin  and  danger  of  growing  up!  Well,  the  children  must 
be  our  deliverers  here.  They  come  to  church,  and,  until 
we  make  it  impossible,  they  like  coming.  The  most  en- 
joyable and  often  the  most  profitable  part  of  the  whole 
service  is  the  children's  address.  Upon  occasions,  as  may 
be  found  desirable,  we  may  conduct  a  whole  service  for 
the  children.  But  I  would  venture  to  suggest,  and  even 
to  urge  upon  every  preacher,  that  a  few  minutes  of  his 
regular  service,  at  least  once  every  Sunday,  should  be 
devoted  to  the  children.  Objections  have  been  raised  to 
this  practice,  on  the  ground  that  it  interferes  with  the 
continuity  of  the  service.  But  it  need  not  interfere,  un- 
less we  choose  that  it  shall.  Some  kinds  of  children's 
sermon  are  indeed  irrelevant.  Children  are  sometimes  ad- 
dressed as  if  they  were  imbecile  or  feeble-minded  adults. 
The  address  is  not  planned  to  accomplish  anything  or  to 
lead  anywhere.  A  handful  of  miscellaneous  anecdotes, 
with  the  regulation  pointing  of  the  morals  of  them,  is  not 
an  address,  but  an  insult  to  very  keenly  intelligent  young 
minds.  I  have  pled  for  structure  both  in  the  sermon 
and  in  the  service,  and  the  plea  is  applicable  here.  Why 
not  make  the  children's  address  upon  the  same  subject  as 
the  sermon?  By  doing  this  you  may  enlist  their  interest 
for  the  sermon  itself.  It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that 
there  is  a  natural  and  invincible  antipathy  between  chil- 
dren and  sermons.  The  sermon  is  not,  or  ought  not  to  be, 
too  difficult  for  them,  and  therefore  dull.  The  trouble 
is  to  catch  their  interest  in  the  subject  and  secure  an 
entrance,  showing  them,  as  it  were,  the  way  in.  If  this 
is  done  in  their  own  little  sermon,  they  will  recognise 
parts  of  the  other  sermon,  and  feel  themselves  familiar 
and  at  home  in  it.    By  this  simple  expedient  much  of  our 

179 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

>  ordinary  preaching  may  hold  their  interest.  Think  over 
the  sermon  you  intend  to  preach.  Imagine  yourself  ex- 
plaining it  to  a  little  child,  and  you  will  be  astonished 
to  discover  how  possible  and  how  fascinating  the  exercise 
is.  Robert  Browning  is  generally  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  unintelligible  of  poets.  No  one  would  think  of 
reading  any  of  his  poems  to  a  child,  with  the  exception 
of  "The  Pied  Piper"  and  perhaps  one  or  two  others.  Yet 
there  is  no  poet  whose  works  are  more  easily  used  in 
children's  sermons.  The  thought  behind  the  condensed 
and  often  crabbed  language  is  clear  and  vivid.  The 
images  are  such  as  seize  the  imagination  strongly.  Read 
over  some  of  his  familiar  poems,  and  in  your  own  lan- 
guage tell  them  to  a  child :  you  will  find  them  an  endless 
treasury  of  children's  sermons.  But  our  own  sermons  are 
surely  not  more  unintelligible  than  his  poems.  By  trying 
this  experiment  with  your  sermon  you  may  find  that  your 
thinking  is  not  so  clear  as  it  might  be,  and  that  your 
images  are  lacking  in  sharpness  of  edge.  So  you  will 
discover  not  only  a  method  for  preaching  to  children, 
but  an  excellent  criterion  and  corrective  for  your  dis- 
course to  their  elders.  Besides,  in  the  children's  sermon 
you  may  preach  to  these  same  elders  also.  There  are 
things  which  we  all  desire  to  say  to  them,  and  yet  find 
ourselves  unequal  to  saying.  In  the  children's  sermon 
you  may  get  some  of  these  things  said. 

To  return  to  our  main  theme,  the  preacher  who  would 
fulfil  the  priestly  office  of  the  ministry  must  be  a  hu- 
manist, not  only  in  the  sense  of  a  student  of  human  nature, 
but  of  a  lover  of  it,  an  expert  in  it.  He  must  be  one 
whose  delights  are  with  the  sons  of  men.  His  business 
among  men  is  to  interpret  their  experience  to  them,  and 
to  enable  them  freely  to  utter  their  hearts  to  God.  John 
Bunyan,  whose  genius  for  humanity  is  as  remarkable  as 
his  insight  into  the  secret  of  the  Lord,  has  given  us,  in  his 

180 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

''Help"  and  his  ''Interpreter,"  two  immortal  models  of 
this  type.  Dr.  Kerr  Bain,  in  his  commentary  on  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  asserts  that  "incomparably  the  great- 
est element  in  the  warrant  of  any  man  who  would  hold 
the  office  of  the  Christian  ministry  is  an  earnest  yet 
humble  desire  in  himself  to  be  helpful  to  men  in  the 
concerns  of  their  spirits."^  Such  a  sower  of  the  good 
seed  "strides  cheerfully  over  the  fields  of  life  with  the 
broad  swing  of  an  unthrifty  mind."^  It  is  a  very  rich 
and  attractive  type  of  manhood  and  of  ministry.  No 
doubt  it  has  its  dangers.  Those  who  have  a  strong  natural 
delight  in  life,  and  who  love  the  world  they  live  in,  may 
need  to  be  on  their  guard  against  that  secularity  of  spirit 
in  which  their  fellow-mortals  come  to  be  for  them  no 
more  than  a  part  of  the  brilliant  spectacle  of  life,  fellows 
in  its  fascinating  adventure,  and  right  good  fellows  in  its 
companionship.  Those  whose  hearts  are  naturally  impul- 
sive and  whose  sympathies  are  quick,  may  find  it  neces- 
sary to  exercise  unwelcome  self-restraint,  lest  their  min- 
istry draw  them  into  premature  or  excessive  intimacies, 
impossible  to  maintain  and  equally  impossible  to"  diminish 
gracefully  or  without  wounding  the  sensitive.  Yet  in 
this,  as  in  all  else,  the  greatest  risk  is  to  decline  the  ad- 
venture. We  are  not  ministers  in  order  primarily  to 
preserve  our  own  reputation  for  immaculate  caution,  but 
to  help  our  fellows  as  we  may.  The  preacher  who  pre- 
serves his  humanism  is  at  least  safe  from  the  risk  of 
professionalism.  I  have  often  turned  to  the  saying  of  a 
very  charming  little  friend  of  mine,  and  found  in  it  much 
wisdom.  She  was  little  more  than  a  baby,  but  her  fa- 
vourite game  was  that  of  conducting  religious  services. 
Once,  after  a  prodigious  string  of  intimations  and  a 
sermon  of  longer  duration  than  usual,  she  suddenly  ended 

1  The  People  of  the  Pilgrimage,  ii.  31. 

2  Peabody,  Mornings  in  the  College  Chapel,  first  series,  xlv. 

181 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

with  this  closing  prayer,  *'0  Lord,  I've  been  long  enough 
a  minister ;  please  make  me  just  a  nice,  nice  gentleman." 

In  a  word,  it  is  sympathy  that  is  required  of  us.  The 
interpreter  must  know,  as  only  sympathy  can  let  him 
know,  the  souls  he  has  to  interpret.  There  is  a  sort  of 
sympathy,  which  may  be  called  dramatic  sympathy,  that 
is  of  great  value  to  the  preacher.  It  is  the  result  of 
a  quickened  imagination  playing  upon  a  wide  knowledge 
of  men's  lives.  This,  as  has  already  been  said,  is  the  se- 
cret of  Robert  Browning,  whose  miraculous  knowledge  of 
the  inner  life  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people  is 
second  only  to  Shakespeare's,  if  indeed  it  be  second. 
Some  measure  of  this  dramatic  sympathy,  which  will 
enable  them  to  get  down  among  the  secret  springs  of 
action,  and  imagine  the  lives  of  others  as  it  were  from 
within,  is  indispensable  for  the  work  of  those  who  have 
to  minister  to  large  numbers  and  wide  varieties  of  people. 

Yet  Browning,  with  all  his  power  of  dramatic  sym- 
pathy, does  not  reach  so  many  hearts  as  some  much 
simpler  poets  do,  such  as  Whittier  or  Longfellow.  There 
is  another  sort  of  sympathy,  not  dependent  either  on  such 
wide  knowledge  or  such  powerful  imagination — the  sym- 
pathy of  the  open-hearted.  You  will  reach  a  truer  knowl- 
edge of  men  by  loving  them  and  keeping  your  heart  open 
to  them,  than  by  studying  their  ways  for  a  lifetime.  In- 
fluence depends  on  sensitiveness,  both  in  ourselves  and 
in  those  we  touch.  If  we  can  preserve  our  own  finger- 
tips, and  if  we  can  discern  and  select  the  moment  when 
our  people  also  are  sensitive,  our  influence  will  be  un- 
bounded. But  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  do  either 
of  these  things  is  by  unfeigned  and  generous  affection. 
No  man  can  ever  fully  interpret  any  experience  in  an- 
other, which  he  himself  has  not  in  some  measure  passed 
through.  It  is  when  we  have  identified  ourselves  with 
them  not  only  in  imagination  but  in  love,  when  we  have 
felt  the  pressure  of  their  temptations,  doubts,  and  fears 

182 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PRIEST 

pressing  also  on  ourselves,  when  we  have  actually  shared 
the  strain  and  anxiety  of  their  moral  and  spiritual  life, 
wearing  our  spirit  as  they  are  wearing  theirs — it  is  only 
then  that  we  are  perfect  interpreters. 

This  intense  humanity,  which  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant qualifications  for  the  ministry  in  the  present 
time,  is  the  characteristically  priestly  temper.  The  priest 
idea  combines  in  itself  the  two  conceptions  of  holiness 
and  humanness — a  combination  by  no  means  difficult  to 
effect,  seeing  that,  derivatively,  "holy"  and  ^  "healthy" 
are  the  same.  To  the  priest,  Montaigne's  contempt  for 
"the  ignorance  of  the  first  I  meet"  is  impossible  for  he 
is  one  "who  can  have  compassion  on  the  ignorant  and  on 
them  that  are  out  of  the  way."  It  is  in  the  priestly  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  that  this  ideal  finds  its  tenderest  and  most 
perfect  expression,  where  the  Priest  is  not  one  "that  can- 
not be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities,  but 
was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are."^  In  our  meas- 
ure, such  high  office  is  bestowed  upon  us  also.  It  is  given 
to  us  as  preachers  to  be  afflicted  in  all  our  people's  afflic- 
tions and  to  bear  upon  our  own  breasts  their  sins  and 
sorrows,  in  a  human  sympathy  which  is  strong  to  save. 

1  Hebrews  iv.  15,  v.  2. 


183 


LECTURE  VIII 

The  Preacher  as  Prophet 

IN  this  last  lecture  we  reach  the  highest  point  in  our 
conception  of  the  preacher,  the  most  direct  and  nat- 
ural of  his  functions.  There  is,  indeed,  no  rivalry 
between  the  priestly  and  the  prophetic  ideals  of  the 
preacher's  office.  To  some  extent  all  preachers  must 
keep  both  ideals  before  them  and  endeavour  to  realise 
both.  Some  will  find  themselves  better  fitted  for  the  one 
and  some  for  the  other,  and  in  these  matters  there  is  no 
absolute  better  or  worse,  which  would  make  it  the  duty 
of  all  who  preach  to  assume  the  exclusive  role  either  of 
priest  or  of  prophet.  In  all  such  choices  (e.g.  the  choice 
between  the  home  and  foreign  fields),  it  is  a  profound 
mistake  to  set  up  a  universal  standard  and  to  apply  it  to 
every  case.  The  best  way  for  every  man  to  choose  is 
not  necessarily  the  most  self-denying  or  the  most  humble 
sphere,  nor  is  it  the  pleasantest  or  the  most  conspicuous. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  thing  which  a  man  likes  best  to  do 
is  probably  the  thing  which  he  will  do  most  effectively, 
but  the  only  wise  rule  for  guidance  is  efficiency.  The 
one  question  to  ask  is  whether  a  man  will  make  the  fullest 
and  most  effective  use  of  his  powers  and  gifts  in  this  line 
of  preaching  or  in  that. 

Yet  it  does  seem  clear  that  the  preacher  should  con- 
sider himself  called  primarily  to  be  a  prophet,  so  far  as 
that  is  possible  to  him.  You  will  remember  that  this  was 
the  theme  of  Dr.  Horton's  Verbum  Dei,  and  that  much 
controversy  arose  regarding  the  main  contention  of  the 
book.  That  contention  is  that  "every  living  preacher 
must  receive  his  message  in  a  communication  direct  from 
God,  and  the  constant  purpose  of  his  life  must  be  to  re- 

184 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

ceive  it  uncorrupted,  and  to  deliver  it  without  addition 
or  subtraction."^  That  is  the  prophetic  conception  of 
preaching,  the  ideal  of  the  preacher  as  prophet. 

Every  great  and  perpetual  spiritual  office  is  created  by- 
some  permanent  human  need.  Prophecy  may  have  many 
different  tasks  at  different  periods,  and  some  of  these 
may  change  or  become  obsolete.^  But  the  permanent  need 
which  keeps  the  office  filled  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion is  that  of  interpretation.  As  the  interpreter  of  God 
to  man,  as  well  as  of  man  to  himself,  the  pfophet  is  an 
eternal  institution,  the  product  of  no  one  age  but  the 
necessity  of  all  ages.  Every  human  being  finds  himself  at 
times  "moving  about  in  worlds  not  realised."  Either  at  the 
call  of  conscience,  or  of  emotion,  or  of  far-wandering 
thoughts,  he  strays  forth  from  the  understood  world  of 
sense,  and  finds  himself  among  profound  mysteries.  As 
was  the  case  with  the  soldiers  in  the  war,  the  eternal 
comes  on  him  and  claims  him.  His  hand  has  touched 
God's  hand,  but  he  cannot  see  God  nor  express  in  clear 
form  those  eternal  truths  among  which  he  wanders.  Wil- 
liam Law  has  told  us,  "Turn  to  thy  heart,  and  thy  heart 
will  find  its  Saviour,  its  God,  within  itself."  But  for  this 
discovery  most  men  will  need  a  prophet's  aid.  And  that 
is  the  task  of  the  prophet,  that  awful  work  of  revelation, 
by  which  he  may  make  men  see  and  understand  those 
spiritual  realities  after  which  they  vaguely  grope.  May 
God  have  mercy  on  all  us  poor  men,  who  have  to  add  their 
own  words  to  His,  that  they  may  reveal  Him  to  their 
fellow-mortals ! 

1  Verhum  Dei,  p.  17. 

2  It  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  these  lectures,  nor  would 
their  limits  allow  it,  to  discuss  the  relation  of  the  modern 
preacher's  prophesying  to  that  of  the  prophets  of  the  Bible,  nor 
to  discuss  the  points  in  which  his  inspiration  differs  from  theirs. 
It  is  enough  that  we  believe  God's  ministers  to  be  still  in  direct 
communication  with  Him,  and  to  have  power  to  break  the  silence 
of  God  with  speech  in  which  men  will  recognise  His  authentic 
word. 

185 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

Interpretation  can  be  given  in  various  ways  and  through 
many  diiferent  media.  Professor  Seeley  has  expressed, 
in  a  passage  of  much  distinction,  the  modern  view  that 
science,  art,  and  morals  is  each  of  them  a  Hne  of  revela- 
tion.^ Especially  the  poets  may  be  prophetic,  and  the 
artists.  In  early  Greece  this  was  the  prerogative  of  the 
poets.  Pindar  says  of  his  own  songs  that  "it  was  a  god 
who  gave  the  words ;  the  poet  was  but  the  interpreter." 
The  disciples  of  modern  poets  make  the  same  claim  for 
them  with  no  less  conviction.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  and  have  been  poets  who  do  not  profess  to  give  any 
interpretation  of  life,  but  write  for  the  mere  music  of 
words  and  the  choric  dance  of  emotions.  Similarly  there 
are  two  schools  of  art.  The  ideal  of  one  of  those 
schools  is  "art  for  art's  sake" ;  and  such  art  is  concerned 
solely  with  the  perfect  expression  of  the  personality  of 
the  artist,  taking  no  cognisance  of  any  message  or  practi- 
cal truth  which  may  be  conveyed.  The  other  school  de- 
clares that  the  mission  of  art  is  "to  urge  men  to  higher 
things  and  thoughts."  Art,  for  the  one  school,  is  merely 
the  voiceless  mirror  of  nature,  or  of  the  artist's  view  of 
nature;  for  the  other,  art  is  the  prophetess.  Each  has 
much  to  say  for  itself,  and  on  the  whole,  in  respect  of 
purely  artistic  ideal,  the  former  school  seems  the  more 
convincing. 

But  with  preaching  it  is  different.  It  takes  rank  with 
Pindar  and  with  G.  F.  Watts,  and  stands  at  the  head  of 
all  other  modes  of  prophecy.  There  are,  indeed,  two 
schools  of  preaching  also.  Some  preachers  and  hearers 
take  "Aft  for  art's  sake"  as  their  motto.  There  are  many 
interesting  and  beautiful  phases  of  life  which  the  average 
man  is  pleased  to  hear  about.  They  direct  his  thoughts 
and  feelings  pleasantly,  giving  him  at  the  same  time  the 
agreeable  idea  that  he  is  religiously  employed.  The  func- 
tion of  this  kind  of  preaching  is  to  keep  him  in  that  placid 
^Natural  Religion,  ch.  i. 

186 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

and  amiable  mood,  without  any  ulterior  design  upon  his 
actions  or  his  character.  But  ours  is  another  ideal  for  the 
preacher.  He  is  the  man  who,  it  may  be  with  rude  in- 
sistence, reveals  men  to  themselves  and  God  to  men.  This 
kind  of  preaching  has  descended  to  modern  times  from 
the  Hebrew  prophets  and  the  apostles  of  Christ.  From 
time  to  time  there  have  been  revivals  of  the  wilder  kinds 
of  ancient  prophecy  in  the  Christian  Church,  but  sooner 
or  later  these  gave  way  to  preaching.  Since  then,  preach- 
ing has  branched  out  into  many  eccentric  varieties,  from 
the  dreary  lecture  to  the  serio-comic  harangue.  Some  of 
these  have  obviously  failed  to  meet  any  real  human  need, 
and  people  are  asking  to-day  whether  the  day  of  the  pul- 
pit is  not  over,  and  whether  it  is  not  high  time  that  it 
were.  The  day  of  such  kinds  of  pulpit  work  never  yet 
dawned,  and  never  will.  But  through  all  the  ages  of  the 
past  there  has  been  a  continuous  strain  of  preaching  which 
has  retained  its  heritage  from  the  ancient  prophecy, 
and  the  day  of  genuinely  prophetic  preaching  will  never 
be  over.  There  is  nothing  that  can  take  its  place.  Books 
and  newspapers  are  good  for  many  things,  and  they  have 
taken  over  many  parts  of  the  work  done  by  the  preacher 
of  former  days,  and  so  have  enlightened  and  cleared  his 
task  for  him.  But  as  for  that  task  itself,  the  essentially 
prophetic  task  in  which  a  living  personality  flings  itself 
upon  the  lives  of  those  who  hear,  nothing  can  ever  dis- 
lodge it  from  its  throne  among  influences  and  inspirations. 
So  long  as  clouds  and  darkness  hang  over  the  spiritual 
region  of  man's  thought,  so  long  will  he  who  emerges 
upon  his  fellows  with  words  of  God  to  speak  find  his 
audience.    Preaching  of  that  sort  is  an  eternal  thing. 

"While  swings  the  sea,  while  mists  the  mountains  shroud, 
While  thunder's  surges  burst  on  cliffs  of  cloud, 
Still  at  the  prophet's  feet  the  nations  sit."^ 

1  James  Russell  Lowell,  quoted  in  Verhum  Dei,  p.  141. 

187 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

It  is  convenient  to  consider  the  prophetic  aspect  of 
preaching  in  two  departments — the  prophet  and  his  mes- 
sage, and  the  prophet  and  his  audience. 

1.  The  prophet  and  his  message.  The  ideal  of  inter- 
pretation gives  us  at  the  outset  this  principle,  that  it  is 
mainly  with  thoughts  that  we  have  to  deal,  and  that  our 
work  must  maintain  the  closest  relation  with  intellect  and 
reason.  It  is  true,  as  Justin  McCarthy  tells  us,  that  ''ora- 
tory has  been  well  described  as  the  fusion  of  reason  with 
passion,"  and  that  "passion  always  carries  something  of 
the  imaginative  along  with  it."^  Nothing  is  more  futile, 
for  instance,  than  an  academic  denunciation  of  sin,  in 
which  there  is  no  element  of  personal  indignation  or 
pity.  Yet  thought  and  not  passion  is  the  first  essential. 
Imagination  which  is  not  playing  upon  a  sufficiently  solid 
mass  of  thought  may  produce  eloquence  either  of  the  ar- 
tistic or  of  the  poetic  kind,  but  it  will  never  produce 
preaching.  Even  faith  which  is  wholly  devoid  of  reason 
evaporates  like  the  last  puff  of  steam  when  the  boiler  has 
gone  dry.  Ultimately  it  is  truth  we  have  to  trust  to,  it  is 
thought  we  have  to  work  upon.  The  preacher  must  be  a 
man  of  strong  understanding,  of  masculine  thinking,  and 
of  intellectual  health.  "The  saviour  of  our  children  will 
be  the  man  who  has  thought  out  truth  more  truly  than 
any  other  of  his  time,  who  possesses  and  is  possessed  by 
that  truth,  and  can  state  it  in  terms  which  persuade,  which 
convince,  and  which  rekindle  those  mighty  spiritual  en- 
thusiasms which  alone  can  make  a  time  great  and  equip 
a  generation  as  strong  sons  of  God."^ 

One  immediate  and  important  consequence  of  this  prin- 
ciple is  that  our  preaching  must  be  mainly  positive  and 
not  negative.  When  one  reads  the  call  of  the  prophet 
Isaiah  as  he  records  it  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  his  book, 
one  is  suddenly  lifted  up  to  heaven,  and  the  preaching 

1  A  History  of  Our  O-mi  Times,  ch.  ii. 

2  Armstrong. 

188 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

emerges  from  the  very  throne  of  God.  All  the  rush  of 
the  Spirit  is  there,  transforming  a  man's  Hfe  and  com- 
manding it,  until  the  prophet  consents  to  his  commission 
in  the  eager  cry,  "Here  am  I,  send  me."  But  the  words 
that  follow,  in  which  he  receives  the  message  he  is  to 
proclaim,  sound  like  one  of  the  most  dismal  anticlimaxes 
in  all  literature,  a  message  of  sheer  denunciation.  In  the 
last  verse,  however,  we  find  the  seed  of  undying  hope, 
which  was  soon  to  grow  into  the  most  heartening  and  in- 
spiring gospel  that  was  ever  uttered  by  any  man  of  old. 
The  anticlimax  may  be  expected  in  the  experience  of 
every  preacher.  As  he  brings  his  high  hopes  and  gor- 
geous flaming  ideals  down  to  the  actual  facts  of  the  life 
to  which  he  is  to  preach,  he  must  often  be  confronted 
with  the  bitter  task  of  rebuking  that  life's  evil  and  send- 
ing forth  his  warning  to  heavy  ears  and  unseeing  eyes. 
Alas!  how  often  does  he  miss  the  saving  seed  of  hope 
and  righteousness  which  Isaiah  found  and  to  which  he 
gave  so  large  and  splendid  an  expression.  The  note  of 
the  preaching  of  Jesus  was  its  positive  teaching  and  ex- 
hortation. For  the  "Thou  shalt  not"  of  the  Pharisees 
He  proclaimed  the  "Thou  shalt"  of  His  own  new  law. 
But  we  too  often  slide  back  unconsciously  to  the  nega- 
tive fashion,  and  measure  our  faithfulness  by  the  strength 
of  our  denunciations.  The  reason  for  this  is  sometimes 
sheer  poverty  of  thought.  Negative  preaching,  occupied 
mainly  with  threatening  and  invective,  is  far  easier  than 
the  positive  inculcation  of  virtue  and  of  faith.  It  requires 
less  thinking.  The  evil  is  naturally  interesting,  and  it  is 
abundantly  ready  to  one's  hand.  It  thrusts  itself  upon 
one's  notice  and  easily  seizes  one's  imagination.  The 
good  is  seldom  so  evident,  and  perfect  things  are  hidden, 
and  must  be  sought  and  found.  To  make  goodness  fasci- 
nating and  faith  convincing  involves  a  far  higher  exercise 
of  intellect  than  is  required  for  the  pillorying  and  scourg- 
ing of  sensational  crime  and  glaring  error.    It  implies  a 

189 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

mind  strenuously  exercised  among  good  thoughts,  until  it 
has  built  of  them  the  home  in  which  it  habitually  dwells. 
Positive  preaching  is  more  difficult  than  negative,  but  in 
the  main  it  is  infinitely  more  effective. 

But  now  arises  a  further  question.  Those  truths  about 
God,  those  thoughts  about  life,  which  are  to  interpret  men 
to  themselves  and  God  to  men — how  does  the  prophet 
attain  to  them?  The  answer,  implied  in  the  very  name 
of  prophet,  is  that  he  receives  them  from  God.  But  let 
us  look  into  this  answer  and  see  what  it  means.  For  there 
is  a  danger  of  superstition  here,  and  of  much  loose  and 
indefinite  thinking.  There  is  nothing  magical  in  the  re- 
ception of  God's  word  by  the  prophet.  In  His  communi- 
cations with  men,  God  uses  regular  and  ascertainable 
means  of  imparting  His  message  to  them.  Of  course 
there  are  occasional  exceptions  to  all  such  rules  as  this — 
eccentricities  of  inspiration,  some  of  which  may  be  quite 
beyond  our  power  of  explaining  or  analysing.  But  the 
normal  process  is  clear.  A  man  begins  with  experience 
and  study;  out  of  these  rise  visions  of  certain  truths 
which  are  specially  direct  and  certain ;  finally,  these 
truths  grow  more  and  more  imperative  in  their  demand 
that  he  shall  proclaim  them,  and  that  is  the  preacher's 
call.  We  shall  follow  out  this  process  in  detail,  for  it  is 
of  central  importance. 

(1)  Experience.  This  is  the  main  point  in  the  whole 
purpose  of  these  lectures,  the  founding  of  preaching  upon 
experience.  Hitherto  we  have  dwelt  chiefly  upon  the 
experience  of  the  hearer:  now  we  must  insist  on  the  ex- 
perience of  the  preacher.  Neither  contention  is  in  any 
sense  a  new  one.  My  venerable  colleague.  Dr.  Alexander 
W^hyte,  has  spent  a  lifetime  in  advocating  and  practising 
preaching  of  the  most  intimately  experiential  kind.  No 
one  who  knows  the  heart-searching  reach  of  his  work, 
and  its  awful  grip  on  the  conscience,  will  ever  be  in  any 
doubt  as  to  this  secret  of  prophetic  preaching.     He  has 

190 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

been  the  champion  of  experience  in  an  age  that  was  run- 
ning after  many  fantastic  doctrines.  He  learned  it  from 
his  favourite  Puritans,  from  the  Covenanting  ministers 
of  Scotland,  from  the  mystics  of  Italy  and  France  and 
Germany.  John  Bunyan,  of  whose  works  he  has  given 
us  so  brilliant  an  interpretation,  expressly  declares  that 
in  many  cases  he  preached  entirely  from  his  own  experi- 
ence, and  made  no  use  of  other  lines.  He  tells  us  that 
when  for  two  years  he  preached  nothing  but  sin  and  hell, 
it  was  because  "I  carried  that  fire  in  my  conscience  which 
I  persuaded  them  to  beware  of.'*  Of  all  the  lessons  which 
the  modern  preacher  has  to  learn  from  the  Puritans,  this 
is  perhaps  the  soundest  and  the  greatest.  Yet  it  is  no 
mere  Puritan  demand.  It  is  interesting  to  set  alongside 
of  it  this,  from  Eugenie  de  Guerin,  one  of  the  choice 
spirits  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  France:  "Our 
new  cure  cannot  supply  the  place  [of  the  old  one]  :  he 
is  so  young,  and  then  he  is  so  inexperienced,  so  unde- 
cided." "It  needs  firmness  to  pluck  a  soul  out  of  the 
midst  of  the  world,  and  to  uphold  it  against  the  assaults  of 
flesh  and  blood.*'  Undoubtedly  such  firmness  can  be 
found  only  in  those  who  have  learned  it  first  in  dealing 
with  their  own  souls. 

In  order  to  be  a  true  prophet,  the  preacher  must  know 
God  and  find  out  the  truth  about  life,  not  by  hearsay,  but 
in  his  own  experience.  It  is  for  his  own  soul  that  he  must 
first  find  interpretations.  He  must  drink  deep  draughts 
of  life,  living  intensely  and  strenuously.  Some  prophets 
have  written  the  message  that  they  sent  forth  in  their 
own  heart's  blood,  and  no  message  has  ever  been  or  will 
ever  be  very  convincing  that  has  not  a  dash  of  the  proph- 
et's blood  upon  it.  Behind  every  prophet's  preaching 
there  lies  his  wilderness,  where  he  has  fought  alone  with 
devils  and  been  aware  of  the  presence  both  of  wild  beasts 
and  angels.  There  he  must  have  wrestled  with  doubt 
until  his  thinking  grew  clear  and  articulate ;  he  must  have 

191 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

fought  for  character  against  temptation.  So  when  he 
comes  forth  to  men,  he  must  ever  seem  to  meet  them  as 
one  who  is  fighting  their  battle  on  ground  where  he  has 
won  his  own. 

This  is  fairly  obvious,  but  there  are  several  ways  of 
utilising  one's  own  personal  experience  for  preaching. 
There  are  some  preachers  who  habitually  narrate  to  their 
congregations  incidents  in  their  own  lives.  This  is  an 
extremely  dangerous  habit.  It  fosters  an  undue  sense  of 
one*s  own  importance,  or  at  least  it  suggests  that  idea 
to  some  of  those  who  are  subjected  to  the  necessity  of 
listening  to  it.  Again,  since  personal  experience  is  al- 
ways far  more  interesting  to  the  person  who  underwent 
it  than  to  anybody  else,  such  preaching  is  apt  to  become 
wearisome.  Reminiscences  of  our  own  lives  are  lit  up 
for  ourselves  by  the  thousand  lights  of  memory  which  fit 
them  into  their  places  in  the  years  gone  by.  To  the 
hearer  they  have  none  of  the  advantage  of  such  personal 
setting.  So  it  happens  that  a  speech  full  of  personal  an- 
ecdote and  reminiscence  may  be  intensely  interesting  to 
the  speaker,  while  it  may  bore  the  hearer  as  trivial  and 
pointless.  Yet  personal  reminiscence,  if  it  be  kept  for 
rare  occasions,  if  it  be  strictly  relevant  to  the  theme  it  is 
meant  to  illustrate,  and  especially  if  it  have  an  intrinsic 
and  vital  interest  of  its  own,  may  be  used  with  telling 
eflfect. 

Much  freer  use  may  be  made  of  one's  personal  experi- 
ences, if  we  tell  them  without  mentioning  that  they  are 
our  own.  A  Scottish  professor  used  to  advise  his  stu- 
dents to  remember  their  own  sins  and  charge  them  upon 
the  congregation.  This  may  be  legitimate  upon  occasion, 
but  as  a  habit  it  would  seem  to  have  the  serious  danger 
of  transforming  the  preacher  into  a  hypocrite  of  a  pe- 
culiarly hardened  type.  The  history  of  the  Church  is  full 
of  warnings  as  to  the  moral  dangers  which  beset  all  ec- 
clesiastics, who,  more  than  any  other  class  of  men,  are 

192 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

tempted  to  run  their  own  souls  into  danger  in  striving 
for  success  in  their  work.  But  even  the  humblest 
preacher  has  to  watch  against  the  divorce  of  personal 
character  from  professional  efficiency.  One  of  the  most 
astonishing  and  alarming  of  phenomena'  is  the  powerful 
preacher  who  is  also  a  man  who  is  morally  unsound.  In- 
credible as  it  may  seem,  it  is  certainly  true  that  a  life  in 
some  respects  bad,  may  go  with  good,  and  even  with 
fruitful,  preaching.  It  is  even  true  that,  while  preaching, 
such  a  man  may  be  genuine  in  his  desire  tb  do  good, 
and  that  his  words  may  come  from  pure  and  earnest 
depths  in  his  heart.  His  preaching  may  actually  be  the 
more  passionate  and  heart-searching  from  his  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  sins  he  denounces,  and  the  imagina- 
tions and  desires  which  are  the  sources  of  these  sins. 
This,  however,  is  but  one  illustration  of  the  anonymous 
use  which  the  preacher  may  make  of  his  own  personal  ex- 
periences. It  is  so  serious  and  dreadful  an  instance  that 
it  could  not  be  right  to  let  it  pass  unnoticed.  In  other 
less  dangerous  regions,  the  method  of  anonymous  remi- 
niscence may  be  safely  and  usefully  followed,  upon  the 
same  conditions  as  were  given  for  direct  narration,  viz. 
strictest  relevancy  and  independent  vital  interest. 

But  apart  from  either  of  these  deliberate  ways  of  using 
the  preacher's  personality  for  the  uses  of  his  sermon, 
there  remains  the  fact  that  that  personal  element  is  bound 
to  enter  into  all  preaching.  The  whole  discipline  of  life 
is  training  a  man  for  his  work,  and  entering  into  the  tex- 
ture of  that  work.  In  reading  a  book  we  are  always  con- 
scious of  a  double  strand  of  influence.  There  is  the  book, 
a  collection  of  facts,  ideas,  arguments,  or  emotions.  But 
there  is  also  the  spirit  which  is  speaking  to  us  about  these. 
Take,  at  random,  four  books  of  travel  and  adventure — 
Du  Chaillu's  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun,  Marbot's  Mem- 
oirs of  his  part  in  the  campaigns  of  Napoleon,  Nansen's 
Farthest  North,  Stanley's  Darkest  Africa.    It  is  thirty  or 

193 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

forty  years  since  I  read  those  books,  and  I  have  long  ago 
forgotten  most  of  the  details  in  them :  but  the  four  men 
so  revealed  themselves  to  me  then  that  I  still  know  them 
as  living  characters.  In  like  manner  sermons  provide  us 
not  only  with  facts,  arguments,  and  illustrations,  but  with 
the  preacher's  sense  of  these,  and  so  make  us  acquainted 
with  his  mind.  They  give  us  incentives  and  appeals  for 
faith  and  conduct,  but  behind  these  we  feel  the  force  of 
the  person  who  is  appealing.  No  more  memorable  course 
of  Lyman  Beecher  Lectures  has  ever  been  delivered  here 
than  that  of  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks  in  1876-77.  I  need 
not  remind  you — for  I  trust  that  great  classic  is  familiar 
to  you  all — that  its  main  theme  is  the  relation  to  one  an- 
other of  the  two  essential  elements  of  preaching — truth 
and  personality.  Without  our  power  to  prevent  it,  nay 
even,  it  may  be,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  our  own  personality 
is  going  out  upon  our  congregations  along  with  the  truths 
we  are  proclaiming.  The  responsibility  for  our  own  per- 
sonal character  is  therefore  the  greatest  of  all  our  respon- 
sibilities.   Tennyson's  lines  are  well  known : 

"  How  pure  at  heart  and  sound  in  head, 
With  what  divine  affections  bold, 
Should  be  the  man  whose  thought  would  hold 
An  hour's  communion  with  the  dead."^ 

This  is  a  great  saying,  and  we  all  assent  to  it.  Yet  surely 
it  applies  with  equal  if  not  with  greater  force  to  those 
whose  fate  it  is  to  hold  an  hour's  communion  with  the 
living,  who  have  called  to  them  for  guidance  in  the  mean- 
ing and  the  conduct  of  life. 

(2)  Along  with  experience  there  must  be  study,  es- 
pecially in  an  age  like  this,  when  the  preacher's  task  is 
to  interpret  God  and  life  to  men  who  are  reading  widely 
for  themselves.  The  message  given  to  a  preaching  man 
is  not  a  spontaneous  and  independent  revelation,  which 
would  be  identically  the  same  whether  he  had  read  any- 

1  In  Memoriam,  xciv. 

194 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

thing  or  not.  Only  extremists  will  tell  you  that  the 
preacher  ought  simply  to  depend  upon  the  guidance  of 
the  Spirit  at  the  moment,  and  that  diligence  in  preparation 
is  incompatible  with  the  prophetic  ideal.  Nothing  could 
be  farther  from  the  truth.  Every  book  you  read  will  con- 
tribute to  your  message,  and  become  part  of  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Spirit.  The  opposite  view  corresponds  exactly 
to  that  of  the  plenary  and  verbatim  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures  in  its  crudest  form,  the  relation  between  the 
Spirit  and  the  man  whom  He  inspires  being  simply  that  of 
flute-player  and  flute.  The  prophets  of  the  Bible  used 
for  their  prophesying  every  means  of  education  available 
in  their  times  and  circumstances.  Each  of  them  was  the 
child  of  the  past  as  he  knew  it,  and  his  knowledge  of  it, 
and  of  all  else  that  he  knew,  can  be  traced  in  the  things 
which  he  said.  The  modern  study  of  the  developing  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  is  founded  upon  the  presupposition 
that  the  same  principle  applies  to  the  utterances  even  of 
the  Saviour  Himself.^  We  have  quoted  John  Bunyan 
as  an  instance  of  a  man  who  preached  and  wrote  in  large 
measure  from  his  own  experiences  unaided  by  study. 
Yet,  as  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere,  there  are  undeniable 
traces  of  other  literature  in  his  writings,  and  that  not 
merely  in  respect  of  wayside  illustrations,  but  of  sugges- 
tions for  some  of  the  most  fundamental  parts  of  his 
teaching.  The  fact  is  that  there  is  no  such  phenomenon 
as  a  prophet  receiving  a  message  which  is  not  aflFected, 
and  so  far  limited,  by  his  own  knowledge  acquired  in 
ordinary  ways.  God  does  not  give  us  revelations  re- 
garding matters  of  fact  which  our  own  study  ought  to 
give  us ;  but  if  we  shall  be  at  pains  to  acquire  such  knowl- 
edge, God  will  show  us  its  bearings  and  its  use.  Study 
is  not  only  compatible  with  prophetic  utterance :  it  is  ab- 

1  Cf.  Baldensperger,  The  Self -Consciousness  of  Jesus; 
Schwartzkopff,  The  Prophecies  of  Jesus,  etc.;  Robertson,  The 
Spiritual  Pilgrimage  of  Jesus. 

195 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

solutely  essential  to  it.  He  who  would  aspire  to  the  high 
office  of  the  prophet  must  serve  his  apprenticeship  as  a 
humble  and  faithful  student. 

(3)  Vision.  Experience  and  study  are  not  enough. 
Neither  the  man  of  experience  nor  the  man  of  books 
is  necessarily  a  prophet.  There  must  be  a  selection  among 
the  various  ideas  and  impulses  gathered  in  these  two 
ways — a  selection  not  made  voluntarily  by  the  preacher, 
but  made  in  him  by  a  higher  Power.  Of  all  his  varied 
gatherings,  some  will  become  different  from  the  rest — 
more  inevitable,  more  urgent.  "The  first  thing  that  is 
necessary  in  an  orator,''  says  Hichens,  "if  he  is  to  be 
successful  with  an  audience,  is  confidence  in  himself,  a 
conviction  that  he  has  something  to  say  which  is  worth 
saying,  which  has  to  be  said."^  This  confidence  will  be 
found  to  attach  itself,  not  to  the  whole  of  any  man's  dis- 
course, but  to  a  certain  part  of  it  which  includes  only  the 
man's  enthusiastic  convictions.  These  detach  themselves 
from  the  rest  of  his  opinions,  and  become  a  kind  of  intui- 
tive and  brilliant  group  of  certainties,  which  form  the 
core  or  nucleus  of  his  thinking.  Such  groups  may  well 
come  under  the  name  of  vision,  for  the  note  of  them  is 
their  certainty  and  directness  of  truth.  Regarding  these, 
John  Bunyan  writes :  "I  could  not  be  contented  with  say- 
ing 'I  believe  and  am  sure' ;  methought  I  was  more  than 
sure." 

How,  then,  do  such  visions  come  to  the  preacher? 
"A  fact,"  says  Martin  Conway,  "must  be  won  from  the 
unknown  by  the  man  of  science,  brought  into  connection 
with  other  facts  by  the  philosopher,  finally  made  strong 
for  good  by  the  idealist — poet,  artist,  prophet — call  him 
what  you  please."^  The  preacher's  experience  and  study 
must  do  for  him  the  work  here  attributed  to  the  man  of 
science  and  the  philosopher.    Within  the  preacher's  own 

1  The  Dweller  on  the  Threshold,  ch.  ii. 

2  The  Dawn  of  Art,  p.  11. 

196 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

mind  the  results  thus  gained  must  be  "made  strong  for 
good"  in  that  group  of  exceptionally  brilliant  convictions 
to  which  we  have  attached  the  name  of  vision.  I  repeat 
emphatically  the  assertion  that  reliable  vision  does  not 
come  without  experience  and  study  behind  it.  No  proph- 
ecy comes  by  the  untutored  will  of  man;  only  prejudice 
and  illusion  come  at  the  call  of  the  man's  inclination.  He 
does  not  say,  *'Go  to,  I  shall  prophesy,"  and  then  merely 
have  to  open  his  mouth.  Behind  all  true  vision  there  lies 
self-knowledge  found  many  a  time  with  shame,  the  strug- 
gle for  character  against  temptation,  arduous  meditation, 
determined  prayer,  and  much  self-denial.  These,  and  all 
the  study  the  man  has  done,  form  the  complex  out  of 
which  vision  will  arise.  The  mind  thus  trained  and  stored 
has  in  it  the  embryonic  seed-bed  of  vision,  which  is  born 
in  us  as  Aphrodite  was  bom,  rising  out  of  the  surging 
sea  of  a  man's  inner  life,  with  all  its  labour  and  thought. 
Let  a  man  honestly  do  his  work  of  living,  reading,  and 
thinking.  He  will  find  that  some  ideas  are  continually 
sinking  out  of  sight,  while  others  are  rising  to  greater  and 
greater  clearness.  Joubert  beautifully  defines  the  process : 
"These  spirits,  lovers  of  light,  when  they  have  an  idea 
brood  long  over  it  first,  and  wait  patiently  until  it  shines/^ 
It  is  not  everything  which  we  have  experienced  and 
learned  that  constitutes  our  peculiar  message;  it  is  the 
group  of  ideas  which  stand  out  from  the  others  as  our 
very  own,  which  have  mastered  us  and  made  us  theirs. 
Of  course  we  shall  have  to  speak  of  many  things  besides ; 
but  we  shall  say  these  other  things  differently.  The  part 
of  our  spoken  words  which  will  tell,  is  that  part  which 
has  "shone"  for  us.  "You  may  do  what  you  like,"  says 
Joubert  again;  "mankind  will  believe  no  one  but  God, 
and  he  only  can  persuade  mankind  who  believes  that  God 
has  spoken  to  him."  The  present  analysis  is  an  attempt 
to  show  the  method  by  which  God  speaks  to  us. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  will  this  sort  of  message  be  in- 

197 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

fallibly  accurate?  The  word  "infallible"  is  a  dangerous 
word.  It  has  to  reckon  with  personal  idiosyncrasy,  with 
many  prejudices  in  the  fairest  mind  and  many  obscura- 
tions in  the  clearest  thought.  Each  of  us  must  think  and 
speak  within  his  own  limitations,  and  nothing  that  we  say 
can  claim  infallibility.  Yet  in  the  main  such  vision  will 
be  sufficiently  accurate,  and  all  true  prophets  will  have  at 
least  some  visions  in  common.  In  our  interpretations  of 
human  life  we  may  be  sure  of  reaching  the  same  general 
ethical  results — unless,  indeed,  a  man  has  perverted  his 
judgment  with  bad  reading,  or  his  experience  with  dal- 
liance. In  the  long  result,  further  experience  of  life 
will,  so  far  at  least,  bring  him  round  to  truth  from  what- 
ever errors  may  have  misled  him.  In  interpretations  of 
God  and  the  higher  spiritual  truths  there  will  be  less  uni- 
formity. *Tt  is  not  hard  to  know  God,  provided  one  will 
not  force  oneself  to  define  Him."^  The  trouble  lies  in 
the  attempted  definition.  All  our  doctrines  are  necessarily 
very  inadequate  expressions  of  the  realities  they  seek  to 
define,  and  the  more  we  bear  this  in  mind  the  less  we  shall 
either  expect  or  desire  exact  uniformity  of  statement. 
Even  the  prophets  of  the  Bible  differed  widely  from  one 
another  in  their  expressions  of  the  same  truths,  and  two 
preachers  may  still  be  both  of  them  truly  prophetic  men, 
though  they  utter  very  different  oracles :  but  there  will  be 
truth  enough  in  any  genuinely  prophetic  message  to  bring 
conviction  to  some  of  those  who  hear,  and  that  is  enough. 
The  days  of  meticulous  uniformity  are  over,  and  the  large 
comprehensiveness  of  truth  is  beginning  to  temper  the 
dogmatism  of  the  modern  prophet. 

(4)  There  is  one  thing  more  in  the  full  equipment  of 
the  prophet,  and  that  is  his  call.  Vision  by  itself  does  not 
constitute  a  call.  A  man  may  find  certain  groups  of  ideas 
rise  within  him  to  such  brilliance  as  to  assume  the  abso- 
lute mastery  over  his  life,  and  to  become  "the  light  of  all 
1  Joubert. 

198 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

his  seeing,'*  and  yet  he  may  feel  no  call  to  proclaim  those 
ideas  to  others.  The  vision  of  Lazarus  in  Robert  Brown- 
ing's Karshish  will  occur  to  many  of  you  in  illustration : 
It  is  sometimes  difficult  to  understand  how  it  can  be  pos- 
sible for  a  man  to  feel  no  call  to  preach,  considering  the 
nature  of  the  revelations  by  whose  light  his  spirit  is  living. 
Yet  we  must  accept  the  fact  that  it  is  sometimes  so ;  and, 
after  all  is  said,  it  is  a  matter  between  the  man  and  God. 
For  this  whole  subject  I  would  recommend  to  your  care- 
ful reading  the  "Brief  Account  of  the  Author's  Call  to  the 
Work  of  the  Ministry"  which  John  Bunyan  appends  to 
his  Grace  Abounding. 

A  vision  becomes  a  call  only  when  there  comes  upon  the 
man  who  has  received  it  a  passionate  desire  to  impart  it 
to  others.  It  is  when  vision  becomes  imperative,  when  a 
man  must  either  speak  out  or  break  his  heart,  when  he 
cannot  be  content  with  holding  convictions  but  must  strive 
to  make  them  the  convictions  of  others,  that  his  call  has 
come.  I  venture  to  put  this  even  more  strongly.  It  is 
common  in  the  Old  Testament  to  read  that  "the  Lord 
spake  by"  this  or  that  prophet ;  and  if  the  view  which  we 
are  advocating  in  this  lecture  is  correct,  the  words  are  ap- 
plicable still.  That  would  imply  that  no  man  has  a  right 
to  preach  unless  he  cannot  help  preaching,  until  he  has 
definitely  received  the  command  of  the  Lord  to  preach. 
I  believe  that  very  many  preachers,  men  who  love  their 
profession  dearly,  would  nevertheless  be  out  of  it  to-mor- 
row if  they  could.  It  is  such  awful  work,  this  daily 
handling  the  souls  of  one's  fellow-creatures,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  any  man  could  face  it  except  under 
irresistible  compulsion.  But  so  long  as  the  call  is  clear  to 
a  man,  he  dare  not  quit  his  post.  He  should  look  upon  it, 
not  so  much  as  one  general  call  to  accept  the  office  of  the 
ministry,  but  rather  as  a  daily  repeated  demand  for  the 
utterance  of  successive  messages.  The  original  call,  at 
whose  summons  he  first  becomes  a  preacher,  will  be  apt 

199 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

to  recede  into  the  background  of  his  ministry,  and  to  be 
heard  more  and  more  faintly,  as  an  echo  of  young  enthu- 
siasms of  former  days.  This  loss  of  the  sense  of  solem- 
nity must  be  avoided  at  all  costs.  The  call  should  be 
heard,  in  all  its  awfulness  of  authority,  summoning  the 
preacher  forth  to  every  utterance  he  delivers.  Sometimes 
it  may  urge  him  to  send  forth  a  purely  intellectual  mes- 
sage, giving  a  truth  to  the  world.  More  frequently  it  will 
be  ethical  and  spiritual,  urging  men  from  sin  to  goodness, 
from  worldliness  to  faith.  In  any  case,  it  is  for  the 
preacher  a  grim  necessity  and  a  heavy  burden,  laid  upon 
him  by  his  conscience.  He  cannot  leave  men  or  women 
in  error  when  it  is  possible  for  him  to  set  them  right, 
nor  can  he  sit  by  and  see  sin  done,  when,  by  speaking  out, 
he  could  get  goodness  attempted. 

I  have  told  you  very  frankly  what  life  has  led  me  to 
think  about  this  obscure  and  very  serious  matter,  of 
knowing  whether  one  is  a  genuine  prophet  or  not.  It  is 
rendered  still  more  perplexing  by  the  universal  difficulty 
which  men  find  in  forming  a  just  and  accurate  estimate  of 
their  own  motives.  There  may  be  unsuspected  elements 
of  vanity,  the  desire  to  be  conspicuous  or  the  ambition 
to  be  great ;  there  may  be  natural  powers  bi  public  speech, 
or  the  inherited  tendency  towards  preaching  which  runs 
in  the  very  blood  of  some  nations.  An  earnestly  con- 
scientious man  may  find  himself  well-nigh  baffled  in  his 
attempts  to  distinguish  between  these  and  the  higher  mo- 
tives that  draw  him  towards  the  office  of  the  preacher. 
The  true  sources  of  guidance  are  as  mysterious  as  the 
situation  is  perplexing,  and  it  would  be  highly  presumptu- 
ous to  attempt  any  strict  analysis  of  the  movements  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  upon  the  heart  of  a  man.  Yet  there  is  one 
general  principle  which  seems  sound  and  helpful.  It  is 
this,  that  when  the  supposed  call  comes  before  the  mes- 
sage— when  it  is  but  a  general  desire  to  prophesy,  apart 
from  any  particular  thing  the  man  wants  to  say — it  is  to 

200 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

be  distrusted.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  call  comes 
after  the  message — when  truths  have  arisen  from  experi- 
ence and  study  into  ardent  visions,  which  now  clamour 
in  a  man's  conscience  for  utterance — then  he  may  recog- 
nise the  call  as  God's  purpose  for  his  service,  bow  his 
head,  and  reverently  obey. 

Yet  forgive  me  if  I  once  more  repeat  that  these  ele- 
ments of  vision  and  call  are  absolutely  indispensable  to  an 
assured  and  satisfying  conscience  of  fitness  in,  any  min- 
ister. At  the  beginning  there  is  all  the  excitement  of  the 
new  adventure,  and  while  that  lasts  no  judgment  can  be 
passed.  But  as  the  years  go  by,  things  settle  down,  and 
we  come  to  know  how  it  is  with  us.  There  are  two  sorts 
of  preacher  in  our  pulpits  to-day.  There  is  the  prophet 
who  goes  there  to  speak  forth  in  God's  name  a  thing  con- 
cerning which  he  dares  not  keep  silent,  and  there  is  the 
poor  clerical  hack  who  preaches  because  Sunday  has  come 
round  again.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  the  ministry 
is  the  most  honourable  of  professions  and  the  most  dis- 
honourable of  trades.  It  would  be  better  to  ''be  a  cat  and 
cry  mew"  than  to  preach  without  being  called. 

2.  The  prophet  and  his  audience.  Every  prophet  must 
speak  with  authority  and  not  as  the  scribes.  What  is  the 
nature  of  this  authority,  and  what  are  its  secrets  ?  In  the 
main  it  is  of  a  twofold  character.  It  springs  partly  from 
a  sense  of  sympathy  between  the  preacher  and  those  who 
hear  him ;  partly  from  a  certain  aloofness  in  which  he 
stands  among  them.  In  order  to  interpret  for  a  man  his 
spiritual  world,  you  must  understand  the  man  closely, 
but  you  must  also  understand  the  spiritual  world  better 
than  he  does.  Much  of  this  ground  we  have  gone  over 
in  considering  the  preacher  as  priest,  but  it  is  necessary 
also  to  deal  with  it  in  the  light  of  the  prophetic  ideal. 

(1)  On  the  subject  of  sympathy,  little  need  be  added  to 
what  has  been  already  said.  Sympathy  is  one  of  the  main 
qualities  of  the  priestly  office,  and  has  been  dwelt  on  at 

201 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

considerable  length  in  that  connection.  It  needs  only  to 
be  added  that  sympathy  will  also  prove  one  of  the  chief 
secrets  of  the  prophet's  authority.  In  our  pastoral  visi- 
tation and  otherwise  we  are  always  gathering  information 
and  forming  judgments  about  the  people  to  whom  we 
are  to  preach.  The  result  of  this,  if  our  mingling  with 
them  has  been  sympathetic,  will  be  to  establish  within  our 
minds  a  fairly  distinct  conception  of  various  types  of 
character  into  which  we  unconsciously  group  our  people ; 
and  we  shall  find  ourselves  habitually  preaching  to  one 
or  other  of  such  types.  This  will  be  of  high  service  to 
our  preaching,  for  it  will  break  up  those  masses  in  which 
men  shelter  their  consciences  from  personal  conviction. 
Under  no  circumstances,  and  on  no  pretext  whatsoever,  | 
is  it  permissible  for  any  preacher  to  single  out  one  in-  ' 
dividual  in  his  congregation  and  preach  at  him.  But,  as 
has  been  said  with  great  insight,  ''effective  preaching 
makes  men  hear  as  individuals."^  In  this  way,  by  preach-  , 
ing  to  the  type  without  conscious  reference  to  the  individ-  I 
ual,  we  may  avoid  the  doom  against  which  Dr.  Whyte  has 
warned  us,  of  finding  at  the  last  our  communion-roll  a 
millstone  about  our  neck.^  It  is  extraordinary  how  in- 
dividually men  and  women  will  receive  and  interpret  the 
preaching  of  a  truly  sympathetic  minister,  and  how  often 
they  will  tell  him  that  it  had  seemed  as  if  he  had  spoken 
for  themselves  alone.  Such  preaching,  other  things  be- 
ing equal,  is  likely  to  be  highly  successful. 

It  may  not,  however,  be  successful  in  the  sense  of  at- 
tracting a  great  audience.  Its  success  will  lie  in  the 
response  which  it  awakens  in  the  audience  which  it  does 
attract.  Remember  what  you  are  doing.  You  are  in- 
terpreting a  certain  number  of  people  to  themselves. 
You  are  showing  them  in  clear  light,  spiritual  things 
which  they  have  felt  vaguely  and  confusedly.    There  is  a 

1  Macphail,  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  p.  53. 
^  Bunyan  Characters,  i,  153. 

202 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

prophetic  element  in  the  hearer  which  answers  to  the 
voice  of  every  true  prophet,  deep  calling  unto  deep.  If 
it  be  true  that  God  never  leaves  any  of  His  children  with- 
out a  witness  in  their  souls  to  Himself,  then  you  may 
count  upon  men  recognising  God  when  they  are  con- 
fronted with  Him.  In  hearers  who  are  religiously  in- 
clined, this  response  is  natural  and  may  be  expected.  But 
it  may  be  expected  also  in  the  children  of  the  world.  Be- 
neath all  their  hardness  or  frivolity  there  lie  the  memories 
of  old  spiritual  enthusiasms,  or  the  shames  of  half-for- 
gotten sins.  Depend  upon  it,  men  can  bury  their  spiritual 
dead  but  in  shallow  graves  within  them,  and  at  the  voice 
of  the  prophet  these  dead  will  come  forth. 

But  it  must  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  very  element 
of  sympathy  will  alienate  those  whom  it  does  not  attract. 
One  man's  prophet  is  not  the  prophet  for  another  man, 
and  the  sympathetic  elements  in  every  prophet  will  segre- 
gate men  like  Judgment  Day.  Thus  the  very  fact  of  the 
close  spiritual  affinity  between  the  prophet  and  the  souls 
which  he  interprets  will  narrow  his  audience  and  diminish 
it.  The  cautious  preacher  of  generalities  and  platitudes 
will  in  some  cases  have  the  larger  congregation,  and  he 
will  certainly  offend  and  alienate  fewer  people.  It  is  true 
that  any  prophet  who  deals  with  the  central  concerns  of 
the  human  spirit  will  say  some  things  which  appeal  to  all. 
But  one  must  remember  that  all  do  not  want  to  be  ap- 
pealed to.  There  are  some  who  desire  nothing  less  than 
any  interpretation  of  their  deeper  life.  And,  besides  that, 
the  personality,  tastes,  and  cast  of  mind  of  the  prophet 
must  necessarily  determine  the  limits  of  his  audience.  We 
need  not  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  each  of  us  has  so 
many  of  our  fellow-men  whom  we  naturally  attract,  and 
so  many  whom  we  repel. 

Hence  the  audience  will  change.  Some  will  come; 
others  will  drop  away.  It  is  foolish  as  well  as  wrong  to 
alienate    anyone    recklessly    or    unfeelingly.      Yet    the 

203 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

changes  in  the  audience  need  not  discourage  any  genuinely 
sympathetic  preacher.  He  should  rather  rejoice  in  it, 
for  those  who  go  will  probably  receive  more  edification 
under  another  ministry,  and  their  departure  will  leave 
him  more  exclusively  among  those  to  whom  he  is  indeed 
a  prophet.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  unintelligent  vexation 
spent  upon  such  losses  in  congregations.  It  is  no  crime 
in  a  man  that  he  finds  another  preacher  more  helpful  than 
you  or  me.  We  cannot  do  prophetic  work  and  still  re- 
main inoffensive  to  everybody.  The  lesson  of  it  all  un- 
doubtedly is  that  each  of  us  should  specialise  rather  than 
seek  to  be  of  universal  popularity.  We  should  sharpen 
and  concentrate  our  message  rather  than  try  to  adapt  it 
to  the  general  taste,  and  should  fortify  ourselves  with  the 
remembrance  of  the  Master's  words,  ''All  that  the  Father 
giveth  Me  shall  come  to  Me." 

A  few  words  may  be  said  here  upon  the  subject  of 
the  criticisms  which  all  ministers  must  expect  to  be  passed 
upon  their  preaching.  "We  move  unconsciously  among  a 
network  of  opinions,  often  quite  erroneous,  which  other 
people  entertain  about  us."  Now  and  again  we  are  re- 
minded of  this  by  a  letter  or  a  personal  attack  in  con- 
versation. We  had  been  thinking  of  the  world  as  a 
friendly  place,  and  it  is  as  if  the  light  had  faded  and  all 
the  geniality  had  gone  out  of  it.  If  we  are  sensitive,  we 
may  even  come  to  imagine  ourselves  surrounded  by  ene- 
mies, and  chilled  by  their  unkindly  presence.  Such  sen- 
sitiveness must  be  resolutely  dealt  with  if  we  are  to 
preserve  our  serenity  of  mind,  and  replaced  by  counter- 
criticism  of  our  critics,  which  will  judge  their  opinions 
in  such  a  spirit  as  will  be  fair  both  to  them  and  to  our- 
selves. 

Anonymous  letters  should  give  us  least  concern.  Many 
of  them  may  be  dismissed  at  once  and  need  not  give  us 
another  thought.  We  cannot  expect  to  derive  much  wis- 
dom from  cowards.    Yet  now  and  then,  among  the  hun- 

204 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

dreds  of  such  letters  which  I  have  received,  I  have  found 
a  valuable  suggestion  or  discovered  a  fault  of  which  I 
had  been  quite  unconscious.  Once  or  twice  a  stinging 
anonymous  attack  has  led  to  a  deep  and  abiding  friend- 
ship. For  the  rest,  I  cannot  say  that  you  will  derive  much 
benefit  from  your  critics.  Some  of  their  opinions  you 
can  discard  at  once,  as  being  obviously  but  the  expression 
of  personal  preferences  for  one  sermon  or  opinion  or 
phrase  as  against  another;  and  sometimes  the  disparaged 
bit  of  work  will  afterwards  turn  out  to  have  been  helpful 
to  someone  else  who  heard  it.  Usually  the  real  meaning 
of  the  blame  is  that  the  critic  has  not  found  that  particu- 
lar message  personally  congenial.  This  may  be  extremely 
helpful.  After  all,  the  critic  is  not  there  for  our  sakes : 
we  are  there  for  his.  Again,  one  must  ask  in  every  such 
case  whether  the  critic  is  competent  to  judge  us  on  that 
particular  matter.  If  he  is,  his  view  is  always  worth  con- 
sidering; if  not,  we  need  not  spend  time  on  it.  I  re- 
member once  receiving  a  severe  rebuke  for  the  floridity 
of  a  speech  I  had  delivered,  from  someone  who  had  taken 
the  pains  to  stroke  out  in  the  newspaper  report  the  parts 
which  he  considered  superfluous.  He  had  stroked  out 
almost  everything  I  really  wanted  to  say,  and  what  he  had 
allowed  to  remain  would  not  have  been  listened  to  by  any 
human  being  for  five  minutes.  When  a  critic  is  spiteful 
and  abusive,  there  must  be  a  reason  for  it,  and  it  is  not 
well  to  allow  resentment  to  embitter  us  in  such  a  case. 
Probably  the  cruel  words  are  but  the  expression  of  an 
unhappy  spirit,  whose  misery  should  only  move  us  to  pity 
and  to  seek  to  help  the  pain.  I  suppose  most  preachers 
will  be  sometimes  accused  of  "not  preaching  the  gospel." 
It  is  a  serious  accusation,  and  it  may  be  deserved.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  are  some  critics  whose  narrow  and 
unintelligent  attachment  to  a  stereotyped  form  of  words, 
prevents  them  from  recognising  the  gospel  when  they 
hear  it. 

205 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

It  is  a  great  thing  to  learn  to  accept  criticism  gracefully, 
and  to  extract  from  it  all  the  aid  we  can.  If  a  man  helps 
you  to  preach  better,  he  has  done  you  a  benefit,  even 
though  in  doing  it  he  may  have  wounded  you.  Forget 
the  personal  affront  to  your  infallibility,  and  judge  the 
case  as  if  it  were  the  criticism  of  someone  else's  work. 
But  whatever  you  do,  never  allow  any  critic  to  deflect 
your  essential  message,  or  to  make  you  timid  about  letting 
the  light  of  your  vision  shine.  That  is  none  of  his  busi- 
ness ;  it  is  God's  and  your  own.  "They  say — What  say 
they  ? — Let  them  say !" 

We  have  seen  that  sympathy  with  men  is  an  essential 
element  in  the  prophet's  authority  over  them.  No  au- 
thority is  so  impressive  as  that  which  is  backed  by  sym- 
pathy. The  best  example  of  this  is  Jesus  Christ  Himself, 
whose  whole  life  was  so  broadly  human,  and  yet  whose 
authority  was  felt  to  be  so  terrible  when  it  flashed  out  in 
scorn  and  anger  upon  wickedness  in  the  high  places  of 
His  day,  or  when  His  love  laid  its  commands  upon  the 
disciples.  In  far-off  and  dim  reflection  of  that  wondrous 
life,  we  may  see  in  every  prophet  in  his  small  degree  a 
similar  proof  that  sympathy  may  be  the  source  and  not 
the  negation  of  authority.  When  men  perceive  one  among 
them,  who  manifestly  loves  them  and  whom  they  love, 
to  be  a  prophet,  they  see  the  lines  of  right  and  wrong  in 
clearer  light  and  sharper  edge.  He,  above  all  other  men, 
has  the  power  to  enlist  their  conscience  and  their  reason 
upon  his  side,  winning  them  through  their  affections. 

(2)  Yet  there  is  an  element  of  danger  in  this  sym- 
pathetic ideal.  In  wise  sympathy  the  prophet  will  always 
retain  a  certain  aloofness.  If  he  so  bears  himself  that  the 
chief  impression  he  makes  on  men  is  that  of  boisterous 
joviality  in  which  there  is  no  trace  of  dignity  left,  he  will 
undoubtedly  lessen  that  authority  which  is  his  by  right  of 
his  of^ce.  Sir  Walter  Scott  used  to  tell  a  curious  story 
of  one  Huives,  valet  to  William  Stuart  Rose.    Rose  had 

206 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

found  him  as  a  preacher,  preaching  under  a  tree  in  the 
New  Forest.  "The  sermon  contained  such  touches  of 
good  feeling  and  broad  humour  that  Rose  promoted  the 
preacher  to  be  his  valet  on  the  spot."  In  this  there  is  a 
world  of  suggestion.  Huives  was  not  the  only  preacher 
who  has  been  promoted  to  be  somebody's  valet.  Every- 
one who  has  allowed  the  fear  of  men  to  modify  the 
message  that  he  had  from  God,  is  of  that  inglorious 
company.  To  avoid  the  disapproval  of  the  influential, 
to  secure  the  favour  of  the  general  crowd,  preachers  of 
the  poorer  sort  are  tempted  to  tamper  with  whatever 
vision  God  may  have  given  them. 

The  temptation  comes  upon  nobler  minds  in  the  subtler 
form  of  fear  for  men.  You  may  be  afraid  of  losing  touch 
with  them  and  influence  over  them,  of  being  misunder- 
stood and  so  unwittingly  leading  them  into  danger,  of 
shaking  their  faith,  of  a  thousand  other  things.  And  so 
they  will  become  your  masters  and  your  patrons,  and 
God's  truth  will  be  robbed  of  its  force,  by  a  nervous  im- 
agination of  its  possible  bad  effects.  It  is  not  worthy  of 
God's  prophet  to  act  so;  and  it  is  as  futile  as  it  is  un- 
worthy. Any  experienced  preacher  will  tell  you  that  of- 
fence has  seldom  been  given  by  the  passages  he  was  afraid 
to  utter,  but  almost  invariably  by  passages  in  which  he 
never  dreamed  of  it.  Of  course  I  am  speaking  as  to  wise 
men,  and  not  to  fools.  To  be  deliberately  offensive,  or 
regardless  of  the  feelings  of  those  one  addresses,  is  the 
mark  not  of  the  faithful  but  of  the  underbred  preacher. 
But  the  message  which  God  commits  to  His  ministers 
must  not  be  first  submitted  to  the  censorship  of  all  im- 
aginable objectors.  "Ye  are  bought  with  a  price ;  become 
not  slaves  of  men." 

The  praise  of  men  is  to  be  regarded  with  the  same 
indifference.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  praise  of  men  may 
be  a  very  precious  gift  of  God.  When  a  man  tells  you 
that  your  words  have  gone  home  to  his  conscience  or 

207 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

blessed  his  soul,  there  is  little  danger  in  such  praise.  The 
preacher's  work  is  often  very  lonely  and  discouraging, 
and  none  of  us  can  afford  to  despise  the  gratitude  of  any 
honest  friend  or  hearer.  We  would  all  preach  better  if  it 
were  more  freely  given.  Sometimes,  in  the  commendation 
we  receive,  we  may  even  discover  a  very  useful  rebuke. 
I  remember  an  old  man  long  ago  contrasting  my  sermons 
with  those  of  an  evangelist  in  a  neighbouring  tent.  He 
said,  'Tn  the  tent  they  aye  say  *You,'  but  when  ye're 
preachin'  ye  say  'We.'  "  The  shrewd  judgment,  intended 
for  approbation,  led  to  a  change  in  my  use  of  personal 
pronouns  for  which  I  have  often  thanked  the  old  friend 
of  my  young  days.  But  there  is  another  kind  of  praise, 
and  it  is  deadly  poison.  John  Bunyan  knew  it,  and  an- 
swered one  who  complimented  him  on  his  "sweet  ser- 
mon," by  the  rejoinder,  "You  need  not  remind  me  of 
that.  The  devil  told  me  of  it  before  I  was  out  of  the 
pulpit."^  There  is  in  many  of  us  an  inveterate  egotism 
which  hungers  for  praise  without  much  fastidiousness  or 
discrimination.  This  may  persist  even  after  years  of  re- 
peated humiliations  which  have  exposed  our  vanity  and 
made  us  ashamed  of  it.  I  would  advise  you  to  read 
the  fourth  chapter  of  Hatch's  Hibbert  Lectures^  in  which 
he  holds  up  the  mirror  to  this  in  his  accounts  of  Greek 
and  early  Christian  orators.  If  your  reading  of  it  affects 
you  as  it  affected  me,  you  will  go  forth  from  that  chapter 
feeling  rather  sick,  and  very  definitely  determined  to 
stamp  out  any  traces  of  this  evil  passion  you  may  find 
within  you.  "How  many  have  been  the  worse  for  having 
their  virtue  known  and  over  hastily  recommended!"^ 

The  fear  of  men,  and  the  inordinate  desire  for  their 
praise,  are  but  different  aspects  of  that  self-consciousness 
which  is  the  preacher's  greatest  enemy.  First  and  last 
we  ourselves  are  too  much  in  evidence,  and  we  must  learn 

1  Froude,  Bunyan,  p.  180. 

2  Thomas  a  Kempis,  Imitatio  Christi,  bk.  iii.,  ch.  xlvii. 

308 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

to  keep  ourselves  more  out  of  the  picture.  We  are  sen- 
sitive not  only  to  the  praise  and  blame  of  others,  but  to 
the  visible  results  of  our  preaching,  and  that  is  the  subtlest 
of  all  forms  of  egotism.  We  grow  downcast  under  the 
sense  of  failure  and  over-anxious  for  visible  success.  But 
the  greater  part  of  our  success  and  failure  we  can  never 
see.  We  know  that  quite  well,  and  still  we  remain  over- 
sensitive. So  we  must  learn  to  force  ourselves  back  from 
self  and  from  men's  opinions  of  us,  and  to  fix  our  gaze 
steadily  on  the  vision  that  was  given  us  for  oUr  message. 
At  least  we  have  heard  and  seen,  and  we  must  school 
ourselves  to  be  content  with  that.  By  doing  so  we  shall 
gain  authority.  Every  time  men  see  in  their  prophet 
such  weaknesses  as  those  we  have  been  considering,  will 
make  him  less  of  a  prophet  for  them.  But  if  they  see 
that  he  is  independent  of  them,  and  invulnerable  either 
to  their  praise  or  blame— that  he  so  feels  the  reality  of 
his  message  as  to  shrink  neither  from  its  consequences 
in  popularity,  nor  from  the  humiliation  of  his  own  im- 
perfect delivery  of  it — they  will  feel  his  grasp  tighten 
upon  their  souls.  Let  him  take  high  ground  as  to  his 
authority,  and  charge  them  with  the  responsibility  for 
their  treatment  of  a  prophetic  message.  Let  him  be  dar- 
ing, and  speak  out  without  arriere  pensee,  and  he  can  do 
what  he  will  with  men.  Let  him  speak  as  the  oracle  of 
God  Almighty,  and  he  may  count  on  a  very  general  accept- 
ance of  his  authority,  in  virtue  of  that  mystic  office.  If 
he  were  only  a  private  man  and  friend  expressing  an 
opinion,  the  crowd  would  speedily  overwhelm  him.  But 
there  are  moments  of  exaltation  when  even  the  populace 
has  been  made  to  feel  the  superiority  of  God  to  Mammon, 
the  empire  of  soul  over  flesh.  These  are  the  moments  in 
which  the  prophet  reaches  his  triumph. 

From  all  this  it  will  appear  that,  in  spite  of  all  his 
sympathy,  there  is  an  aloofness  which  is  inseparable  from 
the  prophet's  work.     In  former  days  this  aloofness  was 

209 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

regarded  as  incompatible  with  sympathy.  Thomas  a 
Kempis  tells  us  that  the  priest's  ''life  and  conversation 
should  not  be  in  the  popular  and  common  ways  of  man- 
kind, but  with  the  Angels  in  Heaven,  or  with  the  perfect 
upon  earth."^  A  modern  exponent  has  stated  the  posi- 
tion still  more  strongly :  "Nay,  rather,  life  had  shrouded 
him  about  with  a  purpose,  and  he  who  would  save  men 
must  walk  among  them  as  an  enemy,  drawing  his  cloak 
about  him,  and  fearing  alike  their  lips  and  their  hands. "^ 
It  is  an  easier  ideal,  but  a  poorer  one.  We  risk  more  than 
those  who  cherish  it,  but  we  play  for  a  higher  stake.  The 
authority  to  which  we  aspire  is  a  very  subtle  and  complex 
thing.  It  draws  its  force  both  from  our  nearness  to  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  from  a  certain  indefinable  separation 
involved  in  the  prophet's  calling.  We  would  be  partakers 
in  the  common  life  of  humanity  and  yet  initiates  in  the 
secret  of  the  Lord. 

Another  source  of  authority  lies  in  that  obscure  force 
commonly  known  as  "personality."  The  prophet  does 
not  employ  only  his  knowledge,  or  his  experience,  or  even 
his  vision,  in  his  work  upon  those  to  whom  he  speaks. 
He,  like  the  orator,  the  actor,  and  the  writer,  must  also 
employ  himself.  "There  are  some  to  whom  nothing  has 
any  real  interest,  or  real  meaning,  except  as  operative  in 
a  given  person;  and  it  is  they  who  best  appreciate  the 
quality  of  soul  in  literary  art."^  Personality  in  prophetic 
preaching  is  to  a  certain  extent  a  magnetic  force — what- 
ever that  may  mean.  It  may  operate  in  sheer  fascination, 
which  is  always  unhealthy  and  sometimes  positively  sen- 
suous, but  it  may  also  be  a  perfectly  pure  and  wholesome 
force.  It  is  a  force  upon  which  every  prophet  must  count 
for  authority  over  those  to  whom  he  preaches,  frankly 
accepting  the  fact  that  he  is  not  offering  them  bare  truth, 

1  Imitatio  Christi,  bk.  iv.,  ch.  v. 

2  Max  Pemberton,  The  Mystery  of  the  Green  Heart. 

3  Walter  Pater,  Appreciations,  p.  24. 

210 


THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

nor  even  his  own  sense  of  truth,  but  truth  with  himself 
thrown  in  as  a  second  element  in  the  gift.  The  difficult 
problem  will  be  to  avoid  such  prominence  of  the  personal 
element  as  will  overshadow  or  usurp  the  effect  of  the  mes- 
sage ;  and  yet  to  blend  one's  own  personality  with  the  mes- 
sage so  that  the  truth  may  come  to  those  who  hear  it,  in- 
vested with  whatever  personal  attractiveness  the  preacher 
may  possess. 

Personal  attraction  or  magnetism  is  of  course  a  thing 
quite  beyond  the  reach  of  definition ;  if  we  could  succeed 
in  analysing  it,  we  would  by  doing  so  destroy  it.  No 
small  part  of  its  power  lies  in  its  elusiveness,  and  in  such 
matters  the  wise  are  always  reticent,  leaving  a  certain 
amount  of  mystery  to  give  atmosphere  to  all  their  human 
relations.  Of  course,  as  we  have  already  seen,  sympathy 
has  to  do  with  it,  although  that  is  by  no  means  the  whole 
of  its  secret.  We  have  all  known  persons  of  overflowing 
sympathy,  who  never  could  succeed  in  making  themselves 
impressive,  or  even  welcome,  to  others.  Aloofness  has 
quite  as  much  to  do  with  this  strange  power.  In  all 
strong  personal  force  there  is  a  certain  element  of 
mastery,  more  or  less  concealed.  The  prophet  must 
believe  in  himself  and  in  his  message.  He  must  trust  his 
own  experience  of  receiving  it  as  a  vision  direct  from 
God,  and  must  send  it  forth  as  a  word  which  has  the  right 
to  command.  I  believe  that  congregations  desire  their 
preachers  to  take  high  ground,  and  to  speak  with  au- 
thority. There  is  no  more  fatal  habit  than  the  not  un- 
common one  of  punctuating  one's  message  with  the 
modest  word  "perhaps."  It  is  not  incumbent  upon  us 
to  soften  down  the  word  of  God  to  suit  the  taste  of  a 
refined  audience.  We  used  to  be  warned  by  wise 
teachers  of  the  older  Scottish  school  not  to  pray,  "Thou 
chargest  Thine  angels  with  comparative  folly,"  nor  to 
preach  that  "he  who,  so  to  speak,  believeth  not  shall,  as 
it  were,  be  damned."     Arm  your  personality  with  the 

211 


THE  WAR  AND  PREACHING 

armour  of  certainty,  and  let  it  go  free,  strenuous  and 
unhesitating.  Let  it  be  the  personality  of  an  athlete  of 
the  spirit,  who  has  wrestled  in  meditation  and  made  up 
his  mind  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow.  Such  a  personality 
will  be  well  worth  sending  forth. 

For,  after  all,  the  only  use  of  personality  in  preach- 
ing is  to  reinforce  and  impress  the  truth  for  which  it 
stands.  Any  personal  influence  or  attraction  which  comes 
between  that  truth  and  the  consciences  and  hearts  of 
men,  is  wholly  mischievous,  and  must  be  got  rid  of.  It  is 
the  truth  which  really  matters,  and  not  the  preacher.  In 
the  last  analysis  their  true  prophet  is  not  the  man  whom 
men  admire,  or  like,  or  agree  with.  He  is  the  man  who 
has  been  able  to  set  them  face  to  face  with  what  they 
recognised  to  be  God's  truth,  and  who  has  left  them  for 
that  truth  to  do  its  work  upon  them.  Whether,  in  John 
Knox's  rugged  phrase,  he  "lift  them  up,  or  beat  them 
down,"  his  authority  must  depend  largely  on  the  answer 
to  his  message  in  their  hearts.  The  spiritual  is  the  real, 
and  the  most  impressive  prophet  is  he  who  has  laid  hold 
on  the  reality  of  spiritual  things.  If  a  man  feels  the  grip 
of  your  hand  upon  his  conscience,  if  by  the  things  you 
say  you  clear  up  for  him  regions  of  uncertainty  into  evi- 
dent and  commanding  truth,  he  will  not  grudge  to  own 
your  mastery.  The  higher  the  revelation,  the  more  ab- 
solute will  be  the  prophet's  authority ;  for  even  the  spirits 
that  live  and  think  on  low  ground,  chafe  at  times  against 
their  lowness,  and  know  that  the  heights  are  better.  Live, 
think,  work  on  high  levels,  and  those  whose  lives  you  in- 
terpret will  bow  before  an  authority  they  cannot  question. 

In  this  final  lecture  almost  nothing  has  been  said  about 
the  war.  The  reason  is  that  the  subject  of  it  is  so  en- 
tirely and  vitally  relevant,  that  it  may  be  said  to  have 
been  connected  with  the  war  from  first  to  last.  Wars, 
like  pestilences,  have  in  the  past  very  frequently  pro- 

212 


•    THE  PREACHER  AS  PROPHET 

duced  prophets.  Great  public  calamities  always  bring 
men  down  to  bed-rock  reality,  and  the  prophet, is  the  voice 
of  reality.  In  times  of  peace  many  prophets  are  spoiled 
by  being  deflected  into  politicians,  journalists,  or  rhetori- 
cians. In  time  of  war,  party  ends  are  merged,  news- 
papers lay  down  their  journalese  and  pulpits  their  rheto- 
ric, and  together  we  all  face  reality.  That  return  to 
reality  is  the  main  argument  of  these  lectures,  and  in  the 
preacher  as  prophet  it  reaches  its  climax  and  summing-up. 
The  prophet  is  the  highest  type  of  such  preaching  as  is 
required  for  this  generation. 


213 


LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP 
ON  PREACHING 


YALE  UNIVERSITY 

1871-72     Beecher,  H.  W.,  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching, 

first  series.    New  York,  1872. 
1872-73     Beecher,  H.  W.,  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching, 

second  series.    New  York,  1873. 
1873-74     Beecher,  H.  W.,  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching, 

third  series.    New  York,  1874. 
1874-75     Hall,  John,  God's  Word  through  Preaching. 

New  York,  1875. 
1875-76     Taylor,    William    M.,    The    Ministry    of    the 

Word.    New  York,  1876. 
1876-77     Brooks,    P.,    Lectures    on    Preaching.      New 

York,  1877. 
1877-78     Dale,   R.   W.,   Nine   Lectures   on   Preaching. 

New  York,  1878. 
1878-79     Simpson,   M.,   Lectures  on  Preaching.    -New 

York,  1879. 
1879-80     Crosby,   H.,   The   Christian   Preacher.     New 

York,  1880. 
1880-81     Duryea,  J.  T.,  and  others  (not  pubhshed). 
1881-82     Robinson,  E.  G.,  Lectures  on  Preaching.    New 

York,  1883. 
1882-83  (No  lectures.) 
1883-84    Burton,   N.  J.,  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching, 

and  other  writings.    New  York,  1888.* 
1884-85     Storrs,  H.  M.,  The  American  Preacher  (not 

published). 

214 


LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP 

1885-86     Taylor,   W.   M,   The   Scottish  Pulpit.     New 

York,  1887. 
1886-87     Gladden,  W.,  Tools  and  the  Man.     Boston, 

1893. 
1887-88     Trumbull,  H.  C,  The  Sunday  School.    Phila- 
delphia, 1888. 
1888-89     Broadus,  J.  A.,  Preaching  and  the  Ministerial 

Life  (not  published). 
1889-90     Behrends,  A.  J.  P.,  The  Philosophy  of  Preach- 
ing.   New  York,  1890. 
1890-91     Stalker,  J.,   The   Preacher  and  His   Models. 

New  York,  1891. 
1891-92     Fairbairn,    A.    M.,   The    Place    of    Christ    in 

Modern  Theology.    New  York,  1893. 
1892-93     Horton,    R.    R,    Verbum    Dei.      New    York, 

1893.*  ^.' 

1893-94     (No  lectures.) 
1894-95     Greer,   D.  H.,  The  Preacher  and  his  Place. 

New  York,  1895. 
1895-96     Van  Dyke,   H.,   The  Gospel   for  an  Age  of 

Doubt.     New  York,  1896.* 
1896-97     Watson,  J.,  The  Cure  of  Souls.     New  York, 

1896. 
1897-98     Tucker,  W.  J.,  The  Making  and  the  Unmaking 

of  the  Preacher.    Boston,  1898. 
1898-99     Smith,  G.  A.,  Modern  Criticism  and  the  Old 

Testament.    New  York,  1901. 
1899-00     Brown,    J.,    Puritan    Preaching    in    England. 

New  York,  1900. 
1900-01     (No  lectures.) 
1901-02     Gladden,  W.,  Social   Salvation.     New  York, 

1902. 
1902-03     Gordon,  G.  A.,  Ultimate  Conceptions  of  Faith. 

New  York,  1903. 
1903-04    Abbott,  L.,  The  Christian  Ministry.     Boston, 

1905. 

215 


LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP 

1904-05  Peabody,  F.  G.,  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Christian 
Character.     New  York,  1905.* 

1905-06  Brown,  C.  R.,  The  Social  Message  of  the 
Modern  Pulpit.    New  York,  1906. 

1906-07  Forsyth,  P.  T.,  Positive  Preaching  and  Modern 
Mind.    New  York,  1908.* 

1907-08  Faunce,  W.  H.  P.,  The  Educational  Ideal  in 
the  Ministry.     New  York,  1908. 

1908-09  Henson,  H.  H.,  The  Liberty  of  Prophesying. 
New  Haven,  1910.* 

1909-10  Jefferson,  C.  E.,  The  Building  of  the  Church. 
New  York,  1910. 

1910-11  Gunsaulus,  F.  W.,  The  Minister  and  the  Spirit- 
ual Life.     New  York,  Chicago,  1911. 

1911-12  Jowett,  J.  H.,  The  Preacher;  His  Life  and 
Work.    New  York,  1912. 

1912-13  Parkhurst,  C.  H.,  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew. 
New  Haven,  1913.* 

1913-14  Home,  C.  Sylvester,  The  Romance  of  Preach- 
ing.   New  York,  Chicago,  1914. 

1914-15  Pepper,  George  Wharton,  A  Voice  from  the 
Crowd.     New  Haven,  1915.* 

1915-16  Hyde,  William  DeWitt,  The  Gospel  of  Good 
Will  as  Revealed  in  Contemporary  Scrip- 
tures.   New  York,  1916. 

1916-17  McDowell,  William  Eraser,  Good  Ministers  of 
Jesus  Christ.  New  York  and  Cincinnati, 
1917. 

1917-18  Coffin,  Henry  Sloane,  In  a  Day  of  Social  Re- 
building.   New  Haven.* 

1918-19  Kelman,  John,  The  War  and  Preaching.  New 
Haven.* 

*  Also  published  in  London. 


216 


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